Biodegradable Stent/Tube for Pancreatic and Biliary Disease

Abstract

Biodegradable stents have the highly attractive advantage that they do not need to be removed after insertion into human organs. For this reason, biodegradable stents using various biodegradable materials have been developed and applied to the several human organs for a long time with the possibility of success. In the gastrointestinal tract, benign esophageal stricture was the first indication of biodegradable stents, and several biodegradable stents are currently attempting to overcome several technical limitations and to be inserted benign bile duct and pancreatic strictures by endoscopic procedure. However, in order to maintain a high radial expansion force while properly controlling the degradation time, there are many problems to be solved because the thickness of the raw material must be adequately maintained at a constant thickness. In this review, the issues or previous clinical results related to biodegradable stents were reviewed, and the concepts of the basics and the problems related to the development of biodegradable stents were discussed.