Walter L Stevens

US Patent:

6699279, Mar 2, 2004

Filed:

May 15, 2002

Appl. No.:

10/147391

Inventors:

Walter J. Stevens - Fairfax VA
George S. Springer - Stanford CA

Assignee:

The Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University - Palo Alto CA

International Classification:

A61F 206

US Classification:

623 115, 623 116, 623 122

Abstract:

An expandable space frame is manufactured by linking a plurality of flexible joints through spacing arms to form a closed structure. The spacing arms are sterically offset, linking the bottom of one joint to the top of the next joint in an stepwise fashion. The offset allows the frame to be collapsed with minimal steric hindrance between the centered joints. This lack of steric hindrance permits a very high ratio of the expansion to compression diameters for the frame. The space frame forms the basis for different types of stents. A spiral frame, or a series of individual frames are linked to each other to form a luminal stent, or are linked to longitudinal struts to form the support structure for a stent. The stents formed from the expandable space frame can be designed to have a number of additional features as set forth herein.