Patent ID: 8574286

Claim:
A prosthesis that is expandable from a radially compact delivery disposition to a radially expanded stenting disposition, comprising: a stack of zig-zag stenting rings of struts that end in points of inflection spaced around the circumference of a stenting lumen that is itself on a longitudinal axis of the stent, each of the points of inflection being located at one or the other of the two axial ends of each ring, with adjacent rings A, B, C in the stack being connected by straight connectors linking selected facing pairs of points of inflection of each two adjacent rings, circumferentially intervening pairs of facing points of inflection being unconnected, and with progress from strut to strut via the points of inflection, around the full circumference of one of the stenting rings B, namely one that is located axially between adjacent rings A and C in the stack, the connector ends encountered during such progress connect ring B alternately, first to ring A, then to ring C, then to ring A again, and so on, wherein: the connectors in rings A, B, and C are parallel to the longitudinal axis and have a length which is less than 1 mm; the struts in rings A, B, and C have the same cross-section and a strut length of more than 1.25 mm, wherein the number of struts in ring B that lie between successive said connector ends that join ring B alternately to ring A, then ring C, is a whole number that alternates between two different values; the pairs of unconnected points of inflection remain facing, in the radially expanded disposition, for as long as the longitudinal axis remains a straight line; and when the stent is caused to bend such that the longitudinal axis becomes arcuate, the facing pairs of unconnected points of inflection that are on the inside of the bend eventually pass axially past each other, side by side, circumferentially spaced from each other, rather than impacting on each other, head to head.