Early development of bioresorbable scaffold

This chapter reflects on the fact whether it could be possible to scaffold a vessel without using a permanent metallic implant to keep the vessel largely patent. Scaffold was the word used by Ulrich Sigwart to describe the stenting process since at that time the word "stent" was not even mentioned in any dictionary of the English language. Back in the Netherlands, Wim van der Giessen and the author kept working on the concept of developing a stent with a biostable polymer with the major Dutch corporation AkzoNobel. The results of this scaffold implantation in the coronaries of the pig model were very satisfactory and were published in the Journal of Interventional Cardiology in 1992. They created a working group to test a family of bioresorbable polymers and biostable polymers, all attached on the external surface of a Wictor stent.