RCIS Practice Test 2025 – All-in-One Exam Prep

The type of stent that is known to be self-expanding is indeed the wall stent. Self-expanding stents are designed to expand automatically once they are released from their delivery system, which allows them to accommodate the underlying vessel as it naturally changes in shape or size. This characteristic makes them particularly useful in situations where the arterial diameter may vary, such as in certain vascular conditions.

Wall stents are made from materials like nitinol, a nickel-titanium alloy, which provides the property of self-expansion due to its shape memory effect. When deployed, they conform to the walls of the blood vessel, thereby providing support and maintaining patency without requiring an external force to expand them.

In contrast, drug-eluting stents and bare-metal stents are not classified as self-expanding; they either rely on balloon expansion for their placement or have other deployment mechanisms. Balloon-expandable stents specifically require a balloon to enlarge them into their functional form, which differentiates them from self-expanding varieties.