Current Trends in Gastroduodenal and Colorectal Stent Placement

It is known that fluoroscopic or endoscopic placement of either bare or covered expandable metallic stents is safe, easy and effective for the treatment of malignant gastrointestinal strictures. However, the use of bare stents has been plagued by recurrent obstruction due to progressive tumor ingrowth through the wire filaments of the bare stents (3% – 18%), and the use of covered stents has been plagued by stent migration (21% – 43%). To solve the problems associated with bare and covered expandable metallic stents, we designed a dual expandable nitinol stent which can be loaded into a 3.8-mm or 4.0-mm delivery…