Stents with high radial strength and methods of manufacturing same

摘要

Polymeric stents having fracture toughness and resistance to recoil after deployment are disclosed along with methods of manufacturing such stents. Improvements to mechanical characteristics and other improvements may be achieved by having polymer chains within individual stent struts oriented in a direction that is closer to or in line with the axis of the individual stent struts. The struts are connected to each other by hinge elements that are configured to bend during crimping and deployment of the stent. The hinge elements may be tangent or non-tangent to the adjoining struts so as to form W-shaped closed cells arranged in an offset brick pattern in which the size each W-shaped closed cell can be defined in part by a curvilinear length that is approximately 4.5 mm, which allows the stent to be crimped down to an OD of about 1.3 mm and expanded to an OD of at least about 3.5 mm.