Patent ID: 11969566
Assignee: VACTRONIX SCIENTIFIC, LLC
Field: Medical technology (Instruments)
Classification: CPC A | IPC A

Claim 14:
15. A method of making a sleeve configured to couple to a balloon of a drug-eluting balloon catheter, comprising the steps of:
forming a tubular sleeve of a shape memory or superelastic material;
forming a plurality of elongate slits passing through the tubular sleeve defining elongate land regions between adjacent pairs of elongate slits of the plurality of elongate slits, the plurality of elongate slits having a first substantially closed position when the balloon is in an uninflated state and a second substantially open position when the balloon is in an inflated state; and
configuring at least some of the elongate land regions to at least partially rotate about their respective longitudinal axes and project radially outward relative to a central axis of the drug-eluting balloon catheter thereby forming a projection from a normal plane of the sleeve while the balloon is in the inflated state, then return to a substantially co-planar position in the normal plane of the tubular sleeve when the balloon is in the uninflated state.