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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 C.sub.2 -C.sub.4 diol; the polyamide hard segments are polyamides of C.sub.6 or higher carboxylic acids and C.sub.6 or higher organic diamines or of C.sub.6 or higher aliphatic .omega.-amino-.alpha.-acids, and the polyether soft segments are polyethers of C.sub.2 -C.sub.10, 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.

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First Claim