Structure Design of Vascular Stents

Vascular stents have become the first choice for treating vascular stenosis, with various advantages such as clinical efficiency and being minimally invasive for patients. An optimal stent design is essential for control of stent properties and enhances clinical performance. In this chapter, the basic properties of popular stents are reviewed first. Second, design parameters that affect the properties of stents, such as stent materials, structure of stents, and expansion methods, are discussed. Then, major vascular stent design methods are introduced, with a focus on finite-element analysis in cardiovascular stent design. Meanwhile, general steps of stent design are described. Finally, perspectives for the future direction in vascular stent design, i.e., multiscale modeling in stents, are given.