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Braided vascular structures 3D printed from nitinol can be squeezed to half their diameter and still regain more than 90% of their shape. That result comes from an international team led by IMDEA Materials Institute and Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM). The group has patented a process that prints the superelastic braids in one step. It reported the work in npj Metamaterials, a Nature Portfolio journal, positioning the method as a path to personalized implants that fold into a catheter and open inside the vessel.
The printed braids also press on vessel walls far more gently than current alternatives. Their chronic outward force (COF), the sustained pressure an implant exerts after deplo