Table 1.

Materials and properties of stents.

Therapeutic Techniques	Bare Metal Stent (BMS)	Drug Elution Stent (DES)	Biodegradable Stent (BDS)
Main materials	Stainless steel; NiTi alloy.	Coated: sirolimus; paclitaxel; everolimus. The main substrates: stainless steel; cobalt-chromium alloy; NiTi shape memory alloy.	Polylactic acid; poly-L-lactic acid; polycaprolactone; Racemic polylactic acid; Mg alloy; Fe alloy; Zn alloy.
Material strength	High	High	Moderate/low
Biocompatability	No	No/coating material Yes	Yes
Biodegradability	No	No/coating material Yes	Yes
Post-implantation Drug administration	No	Always	Always
Vascular function interruption	Yes	Yes	Yes
Incidence complicaions	High	Moderate	Low (but may be higher than DESs)
Manufacturing method	Laser cutting; Traditional cutting.	3D printing; electrospinning technology.	3D printing; electrospinning technology; laser cutting.