Patent ID: 7175651

Claim:
An endovascular stent/graft assembly, comprising: a generally tubular stent having upstream and downstream ends; and a generally tubular graft having an upstream end fixedly connected with the downstream end of the generally tubular stent in end-to-end connection without overlap, said graft further having a downstream end and a substantially tubular sidewall extending between said ends, at least a portion of said tubular sidewall being preformed to be unbiased in a curved condition symmetrical about a nonlinear central axis extending between said upstream and downstream ends of the tubular graft so that the preformed portion of said graft generated about the nonlinear central axis defines a curve in the graft, external surface regions of the graft defining external surface lengths measured between the upstream and downstream ends of the tubular graft and parallel to the central axis, the external surface lengths including an outer length measured parallel to the central axis between the upstream and downstream ends of the graft at an outer position on the curve and an inner length measured parallel to the central axis between the upstream and downstream ends of the graft at an inner position on the curve, the outer length being greater than the inner length, whereby the end-to-end connection without overlap enables a smaller cross-section than a connection with overlap so that the endovascular stent/graft assembly can be introduced more easily into the blood vessel.