[The palliative treatment of venous stenoses in tumor patients with self-expanding vascular prostheses].

During 53 months 14 patients with tumour-induced obstructions of the superior vena cava (n = 8), the inferior vena cava (n = 2) and iliac veins (n = 4) were treated with self-expandable metallic stents. 21 Wall stents and 5 Gianturco double stents were applied. The follow-up lasted from 2 weeks to 16 months (range = 5.

Use of the Wallstent in the venous system including hemodialysis-related stenoses.

Eighteen patients with a total of 23 venous stenoses or occlusions were treated with the Wallstent. In 5 patients treated for malignant stenosis there was one primary failure due to insufficient stent expansion. The other 4 patients showed rapid relief of their inflow obstruction, all remaining asymptomatic despite later stent occlusion in 1 patient.

Historical overview on the development and characteristics of stents and future outlooks.

The history and development of endovascular stents is described beginning with the Maass double helix spiral prosthesis, the first stent used in human clinical trials in the early 80s. This is followed by a description of the three main groups of stent techniques: the shape memory alloy stents, the balloon-expandable stents, and the self-expanding stainless steel stents. Requirements and new trends for improving clinical results in the future complete this text.