Understanding the benefits
The better health care professionals can see a device on an X-ray, the better they can detect and treat medical issues. And yet, medical providers have long dealt with an ongoing problem: limited visibility of devices under X-ray. Nitinol wire, while offering shape memory and superelasticity, requires radiopaque markers to be visible during examinations. However, our teams recently leveraged our capability to use dissimilar materials in a single wire system with the introduction of DFT® Nitinol flat wire.
Here's how it works: Nitinol serves as the outer sheath and platinum as the core, enabling users to view the entire medical device under X-ray and virtually eliminating the need for attaching radiopaque markers. This benefit of improved radiopacity, now available in a flat wire form, also means increased device strength while retaining equivalent material thickness.
Potential end uses
- Catheters
- Braided stents
- Aneurysm coils
Design specifications
Grade/fill ratios
- NiTi #1-DFT-10%Pt
- NiTi #1-DFT-20%Pt
- NiTi #1-DFT-30%Pt
Size range
- Minimum thickness 0.0127 mm [0.0005 in]
- Maximum width 0.762 mm [0.030 in]
- W/T ratio minimum 2:1, maximum 5:1
Condition
- Straight annealed
- Hard
Surface finish
- Light oxide
- Dark oxide
- Etched
- Oxide free