Table 2.

In vivo studies about Fe-based stents and scaffold.

Ref.	Materials	Strut thickness	Eluting	Animal type	n	Vessel implantation site	Follow-up duration	Monitoring	Results
[94]	Pure Fe	100–120 μm	–	New Zealand white rabbits	16	Descending aorta	6, 12, 18 months	Angiography	No thromboembolic complications, neointimal proliferation, pronounced inflammatory response, and systemic toxicity
[104]	Pure Fe	120 μm	–	Minipigs	27	Descending aorta	1–360 days	Histomorphometry and quantitative angiography analysis	No signs of iron overload or iron-related organ toxicity and evidence for local toxicity
[105]	Pure Fe	–	–	Juvenile domestic pigs	8	Proximal left anterior descending, left circumflex artery, or right coronary artery	28 days	Histochemistry, vessel morphometry	Safe, without inflammation. Brownish tinge. No excessive endothelization
[99]	Pure Fe and nitrided Fe	120 μm	–	Minipigs	18	Left and right iliac arteries	1, 3, 6 and 12 months	Histological examination	No thrombosis, decreased inflammation
[95]	Nitrided Fe	70 μm	–	Minipigs	8 Fe; 8 CoCr	Coronary artery	28 days	Coronary angiography, endothelialization and histological observation	No signs of organ toxicity
[17]	Fe-0.07 N	90 μm	–	New Zealand white rabbits	78	Abdominal aorta	7 days; 1, 4, 6, 9, 12, 24 and 36 months	Endothelialization and histopathologic observation	No adverse events, homogeneous endothelial coverage, slight inflammatory response
[101]	Pure Fe – polymer (MPS)	50 μm	Sirolimus	Small Guizhou pigs	15	Left anterior descending coronary artery and right coronary artery	6, 12 months	Micro-CT, angiography and Optical coherence tomography	No inflammation and good degradation profile of MPS
[89]	PLA coated Fe (MPS)	53 μm	Sirolimus	Minipigs	74 MP S; 68 CoCr	Left anterior descending coronary artery and right coronary artery	1, 3, 6, 12, 24 months	Micro-CT, optical coherence tomography, endothelialization and histopathologic observation	No significant impact on endothelial cells and smooth muscle cells on MPS. No thrombosis observed
[100]	Nitrided iron stents	70 μm	–	Rabbits	6	Right femoral artery	1 and 6 months	Radiographs; cell proliferation and viability	Decreased the neointimal hyperplasia by inhibiting VSMC proliferation induced by corroded granules
[103]	Pure Fe	54 μm	–	Diabetic new Zealand white rabbits	7 Fe 7 stainless S316L	Right femoral artery	6 months	Radiographs; endothelial cell proliferation and viability	Increased in iron-stent degradation and inflammation; decreased re-endothelialization.