External venous valve stents for the correction of incompetent venous valves

摘要

Improvements to external stents to render incompetent venous valves competent are disclosed. The device is an inelastic bio-compatible cuff (1) that encircles the venous valve cusps (15) decreasing the internal diameter of the vein wall (11) to allow apposition of the cusps (15) and create competence. The improvements over previous designs include the addition of calibrated known diameters to create competence for different phenotypes. The different diameters are indicated by holes (2, 3, 4) in the body (1). The buckle attachment (6) allows the body of the device to become conical or inverted to become pyramidal as appropriate. The buckle (5) is wider than prior art designs to allow the device to become elliptical at smaller diameters. The angle of the notches (10) in the device are approximately 15 to allow better overriding at the sapheno-femoral junction which allowing for better competence of the valve.