Dimensions of the stent components and the schematic design for self-lock characteristics. The stent element was cut from the film as shown (A). One side of the element (the strip) was glided through the two slits and rolled into a Audio & video cable-tie type stent as shown (B). Before inflation, the stent can be tied on the preferred balloon size (C). Due to the geometry constrains of the double slits, once the stent is expanded, the strip is not able to slide backward (D).
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Biodegradable nanofibers were prepared using an electrospinning technique. All electrospinning experiments were carried out at room temperature. PLGA (240 mg) and rapamycin (40 mg) were first dissolved in 1 ml of HFIP to electrospin nanofiberous membrane tubes. After electrospinning, the tubes of electrospun nanofibers were then hand crimped and mounted onto the PLLA stents (Fig. 2). All of the biodegradable drug-eluting stents were placed Audio & video cable in a vacuum oven at 40 °C for three days to let the solvents evaporate.

Figure 2
Figure 2
The biodegradable stents (A) before and (B) after expansion by a balloon (C) expansion on plastic tube (Scale bar = 15 mm).
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Group A (n = 12) were biodegradable stents with rapamycin loading; and group B (n = 12) were stents with no drug loading; and group C (n = 6) were BMS (Gazelle, Bare Metal Coronary Stent, Biosensors Europe SA, Switzerland) with rapamycin loading.