Expandable medical device for delivery of beneficial agent

Abstract

An expandable medical device has a plurality of elongated struts joined together to form a substantially cylindrical device which is expandable from a cylinder having a first diameter to a cylinder having a second diameter. At least one of the plurality of struts includes at least one opening extending at least partially through a thickness of said strut. A beneficial agent is loaded into the opening within the strut in layers to achieve desired temporal release kinetics of the agent. Alternatively, the beneficial agent is loaded in a shape which is configured to achieve the desired agent delivery profile. A wide variety of delivery profiles can be achieved including zero order, pulsatile, increasing, decrease, sinusoidal, and other delivery profiles.

1 . An expandable medical device for treating cardiac arrhythmias, the device comprising: 
 an expandable cylindrical device having a plurality of struts;    a plurality of openings in the plurality of struts; and    a chemically ablative agent provided in the openings, wherein the openings are configured to deliver the chemically ablative agent to tissue surrounding the expandable cylindrical device without permanently trapping any agent in the openings.    
     
     
         2 . The expandable medical device of  claim 1 , further comprising a biodegradable barrier layer provided in the opening substantially adjacent an innermost surface of the cylindrical device.