| abstract |
Radially expandable intraluminal stents (11) suitable for providing interior support within a human blood vessel are disclosed. A material (33') used to construct the stent (11) is formed into diamond cells (35). Each of the diamond cells (35) have arms (37) of equal length. Diamond cells (35) are interconnected to other diamond cells (35) by legs (39, 39a) or to pairs of smaller cells (41) which have a common vertex and four arms (43) of equal length. Needle-like prongs (51, 53) are attached to the diamond cells (35) at their vertex to function as attachment means for a biological membrane (57'). |