Neurovascular stent and method

A stent cut from a tube, the stent being a self-expanding stent having an as cut state, a contracted state and an expanded state, wherein the stent is expandable from its contracted state to its expanded state, the stent being designed for catheter delivery to a target neurovascular site via a tortuous path in its contracted state, and deployment at the target site in its expanded state, comprising

• a plurality of expandable tubular members, each member being composed of a continuous wire element forming a plurality of wave segments, each wave segment containing a pair of opposite looped peaks and adjacent sides and having a wave shape, such that, in the stent's expanded state, the distance between adjacent sides of a wave segment on proceeding from a peak toward opposite peaks, increases monotonically with an inflection point therebetween, and, in the stent's contracted state, the distance between adjacent sides of a wave segment decreases along a portion of the segment to a minimum and thereafter increases a long a portion of the segment, and
• axial connectors joining one or more confronting peaks of adjacent tubular members, the axial connectors being portions of the continuous wire element,
• wherein radial expansion of the stent from its contracted to its conpanded state is accommodated by movement of adjacent wave-segment peaks away from one another, without significant change in the axial dimension of the stent.