Patent ID: 8257423

Claim:
An endovascular stent/graft assembly for repairing a damaged section of a blood vessel, said blood vessel having a first relatively healthy section upstream of and adjacent to the damaged section of the blood vessel and second and third relatively healthy sections branched from one another and downstream of the damaged section of the blood vessel, said assembly, prior to insertion into the blood vessel, comprising: a substantially tubular stent means for directly contacting said first relatively healthy section of said blood vessel, said stent means being substantially tubular and having opposite upstream and downstream axial ends; a substantially tubular graft means having an upstream end section for directly contacting the first relatively healthy section of the blood vessel, said graft means further having a downstream end section having at least two branches disposed for contacting the second and third relatively healthy sections of said blood vessel downstream of the damaged section of the blood vessel, such that portions of said graft means between said upstream and said downstream ends bridge said damaged section of said blood vessel, said upstream end of the graft means being fixedly disposed with respect to the downstream axial end of the stent means in a substantially end-to-end connection without overlap; hooks fixedly connected with the downstream end of the stent means and extending at least to the upstream end of the graft means; a ring means fixedly attached to the tubular graft means in proximity to the upstream end of the substantially tubular graft means, the ring means further being connected to the hooks for maintaining the stent means and the graft means in said substantially end-to-end connection so that the upstream end of the graft means and the downstream end of the stent means are substantially contiguous while defining a small axial space therebetween, and wherein the graft means has a smaller cross-section than a connection with overlap of the stent means and the graft means so that the endovascular stent/graft assembly can be introduced more easily into the blood vessel.