Flexible expandable stent

Abstract: A stent for implanting in the body to hold open a blood vessel includes cells with facing loops and the curved flexible links disposed and adapted to cooperate so that, when unexpanded, the stent can flex as it is moved through curved blood vessels to a site where it is to be expanded and so that, when the stent is expanded in a curved vessel, at that site, as compared to each other, cells on the outside of the curve are open in length, but narrow in width as compared to cells on the inside of the curve which are short in length but increased in width to result in a more constant stent cell area between the inside and the outside of the curve than would otherwise occur causing the stent, when coated with a medicine, to apply a more even dose to the inside wall of the lumen, avoiding the possibility that a toxic dose is supplied at one area while a less than effective dose is applied to another area. (end of abstract)