Endovascular Stents and Stent Grafts in the Treatment of Cardiovascular Disease

Abstract

Endovascular stents and stent grafts are increasingly used to treat a variety of cardiovascular diseases and these endovascular devices have gained popularity worldwide. The improvement of available endovascular devices is critical for the advancement of patient care in cardiovascular medicine. Problems are still associated with the endovascular treatments, many of which can adversely affect the treatment outcomes, such as the conversion of the patient to conventional open surgery, or resulting in procedure-related complications. This review aims to provide an overview of the commonly performed endovascular procedures including carotid artery stenting, coronary artery stenting, peripheral arterial stenting and endovascular stent grafting with regard to clinical outcomes and imaging assessment. A critical appraisal is given to the novel methods that have been recently developed to deal with these problems and future development of the endovascular devices is highlighted.