Patent ID: 7927368

Claim:
A stent, comprising: a material having structure to provide three-dimensional visualization of a surrounding tissue when said stent is inserted into said tissue and viewed under an imaging beam, said stent having: (i) a single coating layer selected from a group consisting of: (i) (a) a hydrophilic polymer, (i) (b) a hydrophobic polymer, and (i) (c) a fatty acid polymer, and (ii) a density enhancing radiologic opacifier embedded into said single coating layer, said single coating layer and said embedded opacifier material together providing a first Hounsfield image density suitable for viewing under a first image modality used during device insertion into a patient, and wherein said density enhancing radiologic opacifier material is configured to elute from said single coating layer so as to provide a second Hounsfield image density suitable for viewing under a second image modality used for subsequent visualization of surrounding tissue, wherein the stent has an image density of less than about 1200 Hounsfield Units.