A method for manufacturing radially expansible stents (21) from a planar sheet of material (31). Patterns (32) of closed interconnected elements (34) are formed in the sheet of material to provide individual planar networks as blanks for the stents. The planar networks are then reformed to produce cylindrically shaped stents. In another embodiment, a sheet of material (62) is cut to form patterns (61) therein with solid bottoms (63), and the solid bottoms are then deep-drawn using a punch (69). Various configurations for the interconnected elements are also disclosed.
