Patent ID: 8765040

Claim:
A method of making a stent comprising: annealing an extruded PLLA tube at a temperature range of 40 to 50° C., wherein the PLLA tube is annealed for a selected annealing time greater than 1 min, wherein the annealing increases the nucleation density of the PLLA tube; cooling the PLLA tube to below 30° C. at the end of the selected annealing time; followed by heating and radially expanding the PLLA tube, wherein the cooling of the PLLA tube to below 30° C. is prior to the heating and the radially expanding, wherein the radial expansion induces crystallization in the PLLA tube, wherein the increase in nucleation density due to the annealing results in the formation of a higher crystallite density and a decrease in the size of the crystallites as compared to a tube that has not been annealed; and fabricating a stent scaffolding from the expanded PLLA tube.