Lasers are widely used in the manufacture of medical devices - millions of stents alone are produced each year - and enable minimally invasive procedures that save lives and help avoid the complexity, cost and increased risk of open surgery.
Sharp chest pain often comes without warning. Someone calls the emergency services. The ambulance arrives within minutes and stops with a screech. The paramedics burst into the house. Fortunately, the patient is still breathing, his condition is determined to be stable, and he is placed on a stretcher and immediately carried into the ambulance, which speeds down the road, sirens blaring and lights flashing. It sounds like a scene from a low-budget TV series, but thousands of similar events take place every day around the world. Each time, a life hangs in the balance because of a myocardial infarction, usually called a heart attack.
Now move quickly to the hospital. In a treatment room called the "catheterization lab," a cardiologist administers a local anesthetic to the patient's groin, inserts a precision catheter into the artery and deftly manipulates it all the way to the heart. His progress is monitored via real-time X-ray. The cardiologist quickly detects the blockage or blockages and quickly gets to work. A "guide wire" is pushed around the blockage. The balloon at the end inflates, opening the blocked blood vessel and restoring proper blood flow to the heart.
Most often, a mesh tube (stent) is inserted along with the balloon catheter. This is expanded when the balloon is inflated. The stent is left in place to help keep the artery open.
After checking on an X-ray monitor that the blood is flowing properly, the catheter and guidewire are removed, the artery in the groin is closed with a clip and the small puncture is sewn or taped. This entire minimally invasive procedure was performed in a few minutes. Ugh!
This made laser cutting and laser welding of medical devices
Now you know all the information you need to know about this type of angioplasty. You may have even undergone such a procedure yourself. But we bet most of you didn't know that laser cutting and welding was absolutely necessary to make this possible in the first place. That's right, the catheter, guidewire, balloon and most importantly the stent were all made using lasers, often Coherent laser machines.
We say the stent is the most important because it is the piece that stays in the body, usually forever. And that puts somewhat special demands on it. The main requirement is to avoid anything that would cause restenosis. This occurs when the stent causes blood clots to form and cause a blockage in the vein. Then we're right back where we started, with a blocked coronary artery.
Stents are also widely used to reopen other blood vessels. The stent frame is usually made of medical grade stainless steel or sometimes a "memory metal" called nitinol. It turns out that the key to minimizing the risk of any restenosis is to avoid any rough edges or surfaces on the stent. Many of today's stents go one step further and are coated with a bioabsorbable material that slowly dissolves in the body (over several weeks). This improves outcomes because as it dissolves, the material releases a drug that actively stops blood clotting or scar formation.
Laser machines optimised for 3D cutting of stents and catheters
When it comes to metal machining and you're all about precision and edge quality, nothing beats a laser. That's why most stents - and also catheter insertion devices - are manufactured by precise three-dimensional laser cutting, starting with just an empty tube. Coherent has a machine called the StarCut Tube optimized specifically for these 3D cutting applications and related medical devices.
But which type of laser is best? One of the rules of thumb in laser cutting is that if you need smoother edges, then shorter is always better; use a laser with a shorter wavelength (e.g., ultraviolet) or a shorter pulse width, or both. This prevents melting and deformation of the edges during the cutting process, which is then called "cold ablation".
Monaco's industrial femtosecond lasers are changing the landscape for stent cutting
Over the years, we have supported the laser industry in stent cutting with machines containing excimer lasers with ultraviolet 
output and fiber lasers with nanosecond pulse widths. In the last few years, however, the development of industrial-grade ultrashort pulsed (USP) lasers with femtosecond pulse width as well as high average power has proven to be a game changer for metal stent cutting. (1 femtosecond is one millionth of a billionth of a second). In fact, the edge quality created by today's femtosecond cutting is so good that many of the traditional post-polishing steps are no longer needed in stent creation. Our Monaco laser is a great 
example of this new type of industrial laser.
Hopefully you will never have to have a stent put in for any reason. But if it does, you can rest assured that it has been manufactured to the highest standards using the latest laser technology - quite possibly using Coherent'sStarcutTube laser device.
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