A rapid exchange stent delivery catheter for delivery and deployment of a stent has a catheter shaft having a guidewire lumen defined by a passageway with an entrance and an exit. The stent is of a shape memory metallic alloy and is constrained by a sheath. The sheath has an elongate slot aligned with the guidewire lumen entrance so that a guidewire is not obstructed during movement of the sheath to deploy the stent. The sheath is pulled back linearly by a thumbscrew mechanism to deploy the stent.
The invention relates to removable, essentially cylindrical implants which are characterized in that they can be reduced in diameter and are wrapped once or several times at one or more levels by one or more elastic, thin wire-shaped structure(s) (2a, 2b) which include(s) a catch device (3a, 3b) at least on one end thereof.
