Stent Mesh Layout Balancing Metal Coverage and Radial Strength
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing stents for intracranial arteries struggle to provide both sufficient metal coverage and desirable radial strength, leading to delivery difficulties and potential vessel damage.
Innovation Solution
A stent design featuring stent meshes with alternating main and broadened sections, staggered along the axis, allowing for adjustable angles and cavities for drug loading, which balances metal coverage and radial strength, facilitating delivery and therapeutic efficacy.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Strength
If high metal coverage is provided to support stenotic plaques, then radial strength is improved, but delivery difficulty increases and vessel damage risk increases
Solution Approach 1:
The stent is divided into multiple meshes along its length, with each mesh containing struts with varying widths. This segmentation allows different regions to have different metal coverage levels, enabling high radial strength where needed while maintaining deliverability in other regions.
Solution Approach 2:
Individual struts within the stent have non-uniform width distributions, with broader sections providing higher radial strength and narrower sections reducing overall profile. This local variation in strut geometry creates zones of different mechanical properties along the stent length, optimizing both support capability and delivery characteristics.
2Area of stationary object
If high metal coverage is provided to cover plaques, then plaque coverage is improved, but radial strength becomes excessive causing vessel damage
Solution Approach 1:
The stent implements non-uniform strut width distribution where broader sections provide enhanced plaque coverage and radial support, while narrower sections reduce excessive radial strength. This localized variation in metal coverage ensures adequate plaque coverage without causing harmful over-compression of the vessel wall.
Solution Approach 2:
The strut width parameter is varied along the stent length and within individual struts, transitioning between broader and narrower sections. This parameter change allows precise control over metal coverage area and radial strength, matching the mechanical requirements of different stent regions while preventing vessel damage.
3Ease of operation
If self-expanding design with reduced outer diameter is used for easy delivery, then delivery ease is improved, but radial strength may be insufficient to support plaques
Solution Approach 1:
The self-expanding stent is segmented into multiple meshes with struts containing both broader and narrower sections. The broader sections provide the necessary radial strength for plaque support, while the overall compact configuration enables easy delivery through tortuous vessels.
Solution Approach 2:
The stent employs a self-expanding mechanism where the structure transitions from a compressed delivery state to an expanded deployed state. The dynamic expansion allows the stent to achieve sufficient radial strength after deployment while maintaining a low-profile configuration during delivery.
Data Source
Figure 1a~1b
Figure 2~3a
Figure 3b~4c
AI summary
A stent and a drug-loaded stent, each including at least one stent mesh (100), each stent mesh (100) includes a plurality of stent struts (110), which are connected end to end circumferentially around the stent mesh (100), and a joint (120) is formed at the connected ends of adjacent stent struts (100). The stent mesh (100) is configured to expand or collapse as a result of widening or narrowing of angles at the joints (120). Each stent strut (110) includes at least one main section (101) and at least one broadened section (102). The main section (101) has a width smaller than that of the broadened section (102). In each stent mesh (100), the broadened sections (102) of adjacent stent struts (110) are staggered along an axis of the stent mesh (100). This arrangement enables reasonable space utilization and achieves a good tradeoff between metal coverage and radial strength of the stent.