Biocompatibility Comparison of Stainless Steel, Gold-Coated, and Heat-Treated Gold-Coated Endovascular Stents

摘要

Endovascular stents can be altered to improve radioopacity by applying a gold coating. We examined the vascular response in porcine coronary arteries to implantation of 9 mm NIR(~R) stents that were either left intact, gold-coated, or heat-treated following gold coating. Our results show that while gold coating exacerbates neointimal hyperplasia and the inflammatory response, heat treatment removes this negative effect. Heat treatment was shown to increase the diffusion at the gold-steel interface and reduce the surface roughness.