Fabrication of Intracranial Vascular Nitinol Alloy Stents with Improved Mechanical Property and Endothelialization Function

Intracranial vascular stenting has been widely used for ischemic stroke. However, there are complication risks with stent implantation, such as poor wall apposition, stent migration, thromboembolism and stent restenosis, due to the mismatched radial force and conformability of the stents. Therefore, a novel intracranial vascular nitinol stent was fabricated in order to improve mechanical property and endothelialization function. The bending moment of the stents was calculated to be 0.346 N mm, which shows improved conformability. The radial force of the stents evaluated by the flat plate test was 0.0112 N/mm, within the range of the commercially available stent force (0.0065–0.0116 N/mm). Furthermore, the Tyr-Ile-Gly-Ser-Arg (YIGSR) peptide derived from laminin was grafted onto the stent surfaces to promote endothelialization on vascular stents evaluated by the proliferation, adhesion and migration of human umbilical vein endothelial cells in vitro. The nitinol stents with improved mechanical property and endothelialization function are expected to reduce the recurrence risk of ischemic stroke after implantation.