In several surgical operations the healing tissue needs only temporary support or guide to regrow until the tissue has healed. Stents are stable in room temperature and the expansion occurs in body temperature.
Expansion can be rapid or slow depending on the processing method.
In this study the expansion rate and expansion pressures of bioabsorbable urological stents were studied. To ensure constant pH buffer solutions were changed regularly. The outside diameters of three parallel sample stents were measured periodically from three points of the spiral. In Picture 2 is picture series from the expansion of SR-PLGA prostatic stent. The length of the spiral does not shorten in expansion.