Polyurethane Coating on Coronary Stents

摘要

Stents are special metallic or polymer endoprostheses of meshed structure and tube shape. Their function is to prevent restenosis in the arteries. Stents can be coated or uncoated. In the expanded part of the artery the chance of restenosis is bigger even without a stent so it is practical to coat the stents. The aim of this work is to present the results of the coating experiments made on the coronary stents. Three types of commercially available polyurethanes were used for these experiments. The coatings were produced by a dipping method. Electro-polished and non-electro-polished metallic sheets and stents were used for these experiments. Contact angle measurements were done to examine the wetting properties of the three different polyurethane coatings. The quality and the changing of the coatings were examined by different methods (stereomicroscope, scanning electron microscope and energy dispersive spectrometry).