Current concepts on cardiovascular stent devices.

Coronary artery stents used for the treatment of patients with coronary artery disease develop the practice of interventional cardiology after they were first introduced in the mid-1980s. Since then, with dozens of companies involved in the development of new and innovative anti-restenotic drugs, polymeric coatings and stent platforms has made significant progress in this area. Today, the challenge is the conception of the "ideal" coronary stent designed to respond to the patient health difficulty. In this context, the literature in the field is quite dynamic and successful. The aim of this article is to provide a systematic review on the interdisciplinary field literature of the evolution of these medical devices by describing the current status, importance and different types of stents used in clinical practice. After the presentation of cardiovascular problems associated to stenting therapy, the authors describe the bare metal stents, the generations of drug eluting stents and the future in progress directions regarding: the stents based on biodegradable/bioresorbable polymers, polymer-free metal platforms, fully biodegradable scaffolds, as well as drug delivery mediated by stent-targeted magnetic nanoparticles.

Sol gel method performed for biomedical products implementation.

Sol-gel technology is an impressive and instructive innovation in science that necessitates a multidisciplinary approach for its important applications in the practice. An important peculiarity of the sol gel technology is the possibility to control the mechanism and kinetics of the chemical reactions, thus monitoring the final structure (particle size, porosity, thin layer thickness) of the materials. The low processing temperature combined with the intrinsic bio-compatibility and environmental friendliness of the implied components makes it an ideal method applied in different biomedical purposes: the synthesis of porous matrices for entrapping of organic and inorganic compounds, sensor molecules, enzymes and many other biological molecules, selective coatings for optical and electrochemical biosensors, stationary phases for chromatography, immunoadsorbent and solid-phase extraction materials, controlled release agents, solid-phase biosynthesis, and unique matrices for biophysical studies. It is therefore the scope of this review to provide a few insights of the recent progresses made in sol-gel-based materials for biomedical applications.