Patent ID: 8518101

Claim:
A stent comprising: a slitted tube having a plurality of slits that form a matrix of struts which lie generally parallel to each other and to a longitudinal axis of the tube, the slitted tube: being radially expandable to a stenting disposition in which the struts exhibit a zigzag pattern in successive loops around a circumference of the stent, the angle each strut makes with the longitudinal axis increasing as a diameter of the tube increases, the zig-zag pattern exhibiting a cusp between any two adjacent struts with a selected cusp of any one loop being connected by a bridge to a facing cusp of an adjacent loop, the bridge extending from the selected cusp to the facing cusp in a direction parallel to the longitudinal axis of the tube, wherein intervening free cusps, between any two bridges of a loop, are not connected to the adjacent loop, and at least one free cusp in each loop joining two struts of approximately equal length, wherein the lengths of the two adjacent struts in the zig-zag pattern having a cusp connected by a bridge to a facing cusp are different, and wherein in the stenting disposition, the free cusps of adjacent loops are circumferentially displaced from each other; a plurality of radiopaque markers distributed around the circumference of the stent tube, each of the markers positioned in a gap defined between outer surfaces of adjacent end cusps and spaced axially apart from an intervening cusp between the adjacent end cusps; and an end zone in which all of the end cusps and all of the radiopaque markers touch a notional circle transverse to a longitudinal axis of the stent, wherein the stress imposed on the stent by a pushing annulus is shared amongst all of the end cusps and all of the radiopaque markers.