| abstract |
Balloons for medical devices, particularly balloon angioplasty catheters, are made from particular block copolymer thermoplastic elastomers in which the block copolymer is made up of hard segments of a polyester or polyamide and soft segments of polyether; the polyester hard segments are polyesters of an aromatic dicarboxylic acid and a C2-C4 diol; the polyamide hard segments are polyamides of C6 or higher carboxylic acids and C6 or higher organic diamines or of C6 or higher aliphatic φ-amino-α-acids, and the polyether soft segments are polyethers of C2-C10, diols; the block copolymer has a low flexural modulus, namely less than 150,000 psi; the block copolymer has a hardness, Shore D scale, of greater than 60; and the percentage by weight of the block polymer attributable to the hard segments is between about 50 % and about 95 %. The polymers provide high strength, thin wall, compliant and semi-compliant balloons, which leads to a low profile catheter. The low profile catheters have very good initial crossing, good trackability, good recrossing after first inflation. |