From UCLA
For 10 million Americans afflicted with peripheral arterial disease, commonly known as hardening of the arteries, a combination of miracle metals and new surgeries could provide a significant advance in quality of life researchers say, noting that federal stimulus aid will let them take a key new step in their work. They've been pushing to see how to adapt a superelastic nickel-titanium alloy, Nitinol, for use in implantable devices such as stents to keep open clogged blood passages. The metal has some key advantages, including its malleability and capacity to be fabricated into microscopically skinny films, which could be used as a stent coating. But as with many such materials, it appeared to have issues in causing blood platelets to create clots on its surface. Experts think they have resolved this challenge but now will use federal aid for animal studies to show that their potentially innovative devices stay clot free, allowing their human application.
New material, applications could aid those with hardening of arteries
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