Patent ID: 7037330

Claim:
A stent cut from a tube, the stent being a self-expanding stent having an as cut state, a contracted state and an expanded state, wherein the stent is expandable from its contracted state to its expanded state, the stent being designed for catheter delivery to a target neurovascular site via a tortuous path in its contracted state, and deployment at the target site in its expanded state, comprising a plurality of expandable tubular members, each member being composed of a continuous wire element forming a plurality of wave segments, each wave segment containing a pair of opposite looped peaks and adjacent sides and having a wave shape, such that, in the stent's expanded state, the distance between adjacent sides of a wave segment on proceeding from a peak toward opposite peaks, increases monotonically with an inflection point therebetween, and, in the stent's contracted state, the distance between adjacent sides of a wave segment decreases along a portion of the segment to a minimum and thereafter increases a long a portion of the segment, and axial connectors joining one or more confronting peaks of adjacent tubular members, the axial connectors being portions of the continuous wire element, wherein radial expansion of the stent from its contracted to its conpanded state is accommodated by movement of adjacent wave-segment peaks away from one another, without significant change in the axial dimension of the stent.