Biodegradable Metal Stents for Cardiovascular Diseases: Inflammation Modulation and Functional Optimization

Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) persist as the foremost global cause of morbidity and mortality, pushing the advancement of vascular implants designed to reestablish perfusion ability and promote vessel repair. However, conventional permanent stents often lead to long-term complications such as chronic inflammation, late thrombosis, and impaired vascular remodeling due to their persistent presence. Initial approaches applied pure biodegradable metals for stent fabrication; however, rapid corrosion, inadequate mechanical integrity, and slow degradation frequently constrained their clinical applicability. To address these limitations, biodegradable metal stents (BMSs) have emerged as next-generation alternatives, providing transient mechanical support that resorbs progressively upon fulfilling their therapeutic role, thereby reducing chronic body responses. Alloys based on magnesium, zinc, and iron have garnered significant interest owing to their unique corrosion kinetics, mechanical properties, and biocompatibility. This review outlines recent progress in BMS development, highlighting major strategies for performance enhancementincluding compositional design to tailor intrinsic material behavior, microstructural engineering to optimize strength and ductility, surface modification to improve biocompatibility, and multifunctional interfaces to enable controlled degradation and biological modulation. By integrating material science and biomedical perspectives, this review aims to provide insights into current challenges and future directions for the clinical translation of BMSs.