Development of 3D Printed Biodegradable, Entirely X‐ray Visible Stents for Rabbit Carotid Artery Implantation

Abstract Biodegradable stents are considered a promising strategy for the endovascular treatment of cerebrovascular diseases. The visualization of biodegradable stents is of significance during the implantation and long‐term follow‐up. Endowing biodegradable stents with X‐ray radiopacity can overcome the weakness of intrinsic radioparency of polymers. Hence, this work focuses on the development of an entirely X‐ray visible biodegradable stent (PCL‐KIO 3 ) composed of polycaprolactone (PCL) and potassium iodate via physical blending and 3D printing. The in vitro results show that the introduction of potassium iodate makes the 3D‐printed PCL stents visualizable under X‐ray. So far, there is inadequate study about polymeric stent visualization in vivo. Therefore, PCL‐KIO 3 stents are implanted into the rabbit carotid artery to evaluate the biosafety and visibility performance. During stent deployment, the visualization of the PCL‐KIO 3 stent effectively helps to understand the position and dilation status of stents. At 6‐month follow‐up, the PCL‐KIO 3 stent could still be observed under X‐ray and maintains excellent vessel patency. To sum up, this study demonstrates that PCL‐KIO 3 stent may provide a robust strategy for biodegradable stent visualization.