Sylvie Lombardi holds a master’s degree in biomedical engineering from the Ecole Polytechnique of Montreal, Canada. In the scope of various research grants, she evaluated the corrosion resistance and biocompatibility of Nitinol and performed research to modify the surface of Nitinol to improve these qualities. During the past ten years, she has developed a variety of Nitinol stents and stent graft devices used in vascular and non-vascular applications. She is currently managing an R&D stent programme at the medical device company C. R. BARD angiomed.

Sylvie Lombardi¹ and Philippe Poncet^2
1Angiomed, subsidiary of C.R. Bard, Inc, Karlsruhe, Germany; ²Memry Corporation, Bethel, Connecticut, USA

Address for correspondence:
Sylvie Lombardi
Angiomed GmbH & Co.
Medizintechnik KG,Wachhaustrasse 6
D-76227 Karlsruhe
Germany
Tel: +49 721 9445 258 Fax: +49 721 9445 215
Email: sylvie.lombardi@crbard.com

Abstract
Nickel-titanium shape-memory alloys, commonly known as Nitinol, are used increasingly in a variety of medical devices for minimally invasive and interventional procedures. The success of Nitinol is attributable to two unique properties – shape-memory effect and superelasticity – based on the ability of Nitinol to exist in two reversible phases. Thermal shape-memory enables Nitinol implants to be compressed for insertion into delivery systems and deployment, but then restored to their original shape following release. Superelasticity is highly advantageous in applications where crush and kink resistance, flexibility, constancy of applied stress and large expansion or deformation ratios are a necessity. Nitinol is stable, biocompatible, MRI compatible and has good corrosion resistance. The unique combination of properties of Nitinol offers exciting possibilities for the design of new devices and instrumentation.

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