It is the ultimate accolade for an inventor or manufacturer when their name becomes part of the language or is used as a verb to describe a action. Examples include Hoover, Xerox and Google. In cardiology the stent, which is used to treat patients with narrowed coronary arteries shares this unique position as a noun and a verb but where did the word stent come from and why are stents called stents?
Mosby's medical dictionary defines a stent as "1. a compound used in making dental impressions and medical molds. 2. a mold or device made of stent, used in anchoring skin grafts and for supporting body parts and cavities during grafting of vessels and tubes of the body during surgical anastomosis."
In 1856 Dr Charles Stent invented a material made of natural latex mixed with stearine, talc and red dye which resulted in a stable flexible material which could be used to make dental molds. Some years later the famous plastic surgeon Harold Gillies in his 1920 book Plastic Surgery of the Face, wrote "The dental composition used for this purpose is that put forward by Stent, and a mold composed of it, is known us a "Stent." This is probably the first use of Stent's name as a noun. The use of the word stent to describe a scaffold in the vascular system was by Dr Charles Dotter who in 1983 published his report on "Transluminal expandable nitinol coil stent grafting." The first coronary stent was implanted in 1986 by Jacques Puel in Toulouse and together with Ulrich Sigwart they were been credited with developing the concept of the coronary stent. This device is now used in more than 80% of angioplasty procedures and provides a scaffold for the local delivery of drugs to the artery to prevent re-narrowing at the site of implantation.
Mosby's medical dictionary defines a stent as "1. a compound used in making dental impressions and medical molds. 2. a mold or device made of stent, used in anchoring skin grafts and for supporting body parts and cavities during grafting of vessels and tubes of the body during surgical anastomosis."
In 1856 Dr Charles Stent invented a material made of natural latex mixed with stearine, talc and red dye which resulted in a stable flexible material which could be used to make dental molds. Some years later the famous plastic surgeon Harold Gillies in his 1920 book Plastic Surgery of the Face, wrote "The dental composition used for this purpose is that put forward by Stent, and a mold composed of it, is known us a "Stent." This is probably the first use of Stent's name as a noun. The use of the word stent to describe a scaffold in the vascular system was by Dr Charles Dotter who in 1983 published his report on "Transluminal expandable nitinol coil stent grafting." The first coronary stent was implanted in 1986 by Jacques Puel in Toulouse and together with Ulrich Sigwart they were been credited with developing the concept of the coronary stent. This device is now used in more than 80% of angioplasty procedures and provides a scaffold for the local delivery of drugs to the artery to prevent re-narrowing at the site of implantation.
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