Bio-Based Covered Stents: The Potential of Biologically Derived Membranes.

IMPACT STATEMENT: The use of bio-based materials (i.e., biologically derived materials that have either a biological origin, including engineered tissues, or a bio-inspired chemical composition) offers the potential to obtain covered stents (CS) with superior performance with respect to the currently available ones, which employ synthetic materials. This will advance and expand the clinical applicability of CS not only in the cardiovascular field but also for the treatment of other target areas such as segments of the respiratory, gastrointestinal, biliary, and urinary tracts.