Patent ID: 7344556

Claim:
A method of treating a vascular bifurcation of a main coronary vessel into a first and a second branch vessels, comprising the steps of: providing a delivery catheter having a stent thereon, the stent having an upstream end and a downstream end with at least one marker on the downstream end, and being self expandable to a configuration having a single central lumen in which the upstream end has a smaller dimension than the downstream end; positioning the catheter such that the stent is at a treatment site within the main coronary vessel with the downstream end adjacent the vascular bifurcation; deploying the stent in the main coronary vessel such that the stent self expands to a configuration in which the upstream end of the stent has a smaller dimension than the downstream end of the stent, and in which the downstream end communicates with both the first and the second branch vessels, wherein said deploying comprises moving a releasable restraint having a plurality of expansion limiting bands with respect to said stent; and eluting a drug from the stent at the treatment site.