Patent ID: 6689162
Filing Date: 2004-02-10
Classification: A61B,A61F,D04C,D10B

Abstract:
A medical device including:an elongate and flexible catheter; a braided prosthesis mounted to the catheter at a distal end thereof in surrounding relation thereto, said prosthesis including an interbraiding of a plurality of structural strands and a plurality of textile strands being more compliant than the structural strands and having a textile strand melting temperature; wherein the structural strands are formed of a structural material and have respective nominal strand shapes when in a relaxed state under no external stress, and further are elastically deformable away from their respective nominal strand shapes, wherein each of the structural strands is adapted to be altered to acquire a selected nominal strand shape different from an original nominal strand shape according to a shape-altering step selected from the group consisting of: (1) a selective plastic deformation including application of a bending stress sufficient to cause a plastic flow and thereby alter the nominal strand shape from the original nominal strand shape to the selected nominal strand shape, wherein the structural strands are resilient and ductile; and (2) a selective thermal setting including a heating of the structural strands at least to a heat set temperature while maintaining the structural strands in their respective selected nominal strand shapes, wherein the structural strands are susceptible to said selective thermal setting only when heated at least to the heat set temperature; wherein the structural strands are so altered, and when in the respective selected nominal strand shapes form windings having tubular profiles, and further have selected orientations within the prosthesis to impart to the prosthesis a tubular predetermined nominal shape corresponding to said tubular profiles; and wherein the heat set temperature is higher than the textile strand melting temperature.