Braiding is an affair of the heart to us.

Stents, braided with Nitinol (Nitinol = nickel-titanium alloy) or stainless steel,
can give a firm hold to human blood vessels. Braids can consist of 16 up to 288 wires and any thing in between. Occluders, braided with finest wires are used for cure or rehabilitation of heart defects. An exact programming, control devices and tailor-made take-off systems at different braiding machines guarantee a consistently high quality of the products.

Braided surgical sutures, made of silk, UHMWPE fibers or absorbable material are commonly used in many surgeries.

Special machine configurations were developed to provide a surgical suture that in some segments has an identification thread (tracer) in a different color. This special feature is an aid to the surgeon when performing complicated operations.

Conventional braiding machine set-ups are used for standardized sutures. The most commonly used number of carriers would be 3, 4, 6, 8, 12 or 16 , depending on the machine construction.

A more recent development by Herzog allows for a braiding machine to switch from a flat braided tape into a circular (round) braided suture.  Exact programming of each segment allows for the manufacturing of tailor made products dedicated to a specific application.