The Design of an Apparatus for Creating a Model Drug Eluting Stent (DES)

Wednesday, May 27, 2020

12:00 PM-2:00 PM

BIOMED Master's Thesis Defense

Title:
The Design of an Apparatus for Creating a Model Drug Eluting Stent (DES)

Speaker:
Rebecca L. Kitchmire, Master's Candidate
School of Biomedical Engineering, Science and Health Systems
Drexel University

Advisor:
Steven M. Kurtz, PhD
Research Professor
School of Biomedical Engineering, Science and Health Systems
Drexel University

Details:
Coronary artery disease (CAD) is the most common form of cardiovascular disease in the United States. Drug eluting stents (DESs) are a commonly used medical device in the treatment of CAD. However, the polymer coatings that are applied to these stents for drug release over an extended period can cause an inflammatory response at the implantation site. To counteract this, many researchers are seeking new polymer coatings by fabricating DESs at a laboratory level. These fabrication processes are inconsistent across research facilities and could benefit from a well-defined processing procedure for DES fabrication.

This study aims to create an apparatus and processing procedure for applying a polymer coating to a bare metal stent. This design incorporated a combination of hardware and software components to develop a polymer spray-coating apparatus. A processing procedure was then developed to allow the device to apply a polymer coating of uniform morphology and thickness to stainless steel foils. However, when this processing procedure was translated to stainless steel stents, large variations in coating morphology and thickness were observed. Future work will be useful to further refine the processing procedure and create DES samples with uniform coating morphologies and thicknesses.

Contact Information

Natalia Broz
njb33@drexel.edu