This invention relates to vascular repair devices, and in particular intravascular stents, which are adapted to be implanted into a patient's body lumen, such as a blood vessel or coronary artery, to maintain the patency thereof. Stents are particularly useful in the treatment of atherosclerotic stenosis in arteries and blood vessels.
Stents are generally tubular-shaped devices which function to hold open a segment of a blood vessel or other body lumen such as a coronary artery. They also are suitable for use to support and hold back a dissected arterial lining that can occlude the fluid passageway. At present, there are numerous commercial stents being marketed throughout the world. While some of these stents are flexible and have the appropriate radial rigidity needed to hold open a vessel or artery, there typically is a tradeoff between flexibility and radial strength.
Further, some coronary arteries may develop vulnerable plaque which may require treatment through stenting. What has been needed and heretofore unavailable is a stent which has a high degree of flexibility so that it can be advanced through tortuous passageways and can be readily expanded, and yet have the mechanical strength to hold open the body lumen or artery into which it is implanted and provide adequate vessel wall coverage at selected areas. What also has been needed is a stent that selectively reduces cell growth in one area, but enhances cell growth in other areas too, for example, cover the thin fibrous cap covering vulnerable plaque. The present invention satisfies these needs. The stent of the present invention has a high degree of flexibility making it possible to advance the stent easily through tortuous arteries, yet the stent has sufficient radial rigidity so that it can hold open an artery or other blood vessel, provide adequate vessel wall coverage, and enhance endothelial cell growth to reinforce the fibrous cover over any vulnerable plaque.