Flexible tantalum stent

Several properties of tantalum, such as malleability, light weight, strength, and relative biological inertness, make the metal ideal for surgical purposes. Flexible tantalum stents are used in a variety of surgical... 

Strecker EP, Boos I, Gottmann D, Vetter S and Haase W (2001) Popliteal artery stenting using flexible tantalum stents. Cardiovasc Intervent Radiol 24 168-175. 

Strecker EP, Boos I, Schmid G, Gottmann D and Vetter S (2000) Flexible tantalum stents for the treatment of renovascular hypertension a 10-year experiment. Eur Radiol 10 1144-1151. 

Strecker EP, Boos IBL, Hagen B. Flexible tantalum stents for the treatment of iliac artery lesions long-term patency, complications, andriskfactors. Radiology 1996 204 87-96. 

Due to the development of newer self-expanding stents, which combine the flexibility of the tantalum stent with the strength to oppose compression of stainless steel stents, the Strecker tantalum stent is no longer produced. 

Although not as widely used as titanium, tantalum has found a number of applications, e.g. in vascular clips, as a suture and to fabricate flexible stents to prevent arterial collapse. The reader is referred to a paper by J. Black (1994), where the material properties are reviewed, together with... 

The second balloon-expandable stent type has been made from a single tantalum filament, which was woven into a cylindrical wire mesh. Again, the choice of thickness of the tantalum wire and the knitting technique determines the mechanical properties of this stent type. This particular stent type has been known as the Strecker stent (Boston Scientific, Natick, MA) (Strecker et al. 1990). This stent requires balloon dilatation for deployment like the Palmaz type stents. Generally, it is more flexible but also less resistant to compressive forces than the stainless steel balloon-expandable stents. Stents for use in the respiratory system came in lengths between 20 and 40 mm, and were expandable to diameters between 5 and 11 mm. Due to its relatively low radial forces, this particular stent had the unique feature of possible stent removal, thus it can be used for temporary stenting (Schmidt et al. 1999 Witt et al. 1997). 

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