Development History of Endovascular Surgery and Devices

Abstract

There are six major techniques for endovascular treatment, i.e., percutaneous endovascular balloon angioplasty, endovascular stent angioplasty, endovascular graft exclusion for artery dilatations, endovascular thrombolysis, endovascular embolectomy, and minimally invasive endovascular replacement of cardiac valves, none of which can do without continuous improvement and innovation of endovascular devices. While Seldinger percutaneous vascular puncture has opened the first chapter of endovascular treatment, percutaneous endovascular balloon angioplasty is the first step of endovascular treatment. It has experienced the stages of catheter dilatation, classical balloon dilation, special drug-eluting balloon, and so forth, having laid the foundation of endovascular treatment. Similarly, stent, a representative of endovascular implants, has also undergone continuous innovations of bare stent, drug-eluting stent, and absorbable stent. However, when it comes to comparing the long-term advantages and disadvantages of stents of different configurations and materials after having been applied at different sites of the human body, more clinical researches are required for further confirmation. Besides progress in peripheral arterial devices, fast-changing innovations are also being carried out on devices used for the endovascular treatment of aortic diseases. As for endovascular devices applied to aortic dilatations, from the coating materials at the beginning, through the small-caliber delivery systems, to the innovations in the overall configurations of stent grafts, more and more aortic diseases which could not handle minimally invasive endovascular treatment in the past can now be cured through endovascular treatment. In short, endovascular devices adopt further minimally invasive treatment, higher disease adaptability and better long-term effectiveness as their development directions, and the endless emergence of new design concepts (such as individualized customization), new materials and new manufacturing processes forecasts the accelerated arrival of an era in which all vascular diseases can be cured through minimally invasive endovascular treatment.