The most celebrated superelastic medical devices are self-expanding stents, used to brace the inside circumference of a tubular passage such as an esophagus, bile duct, or blood vessel. Probably the most interesting area of application is in the cardiovascular system, as a follow-up to balloon angioplasty. The placement of a stent has been shown to significantly decrease the propensity for restenosis. Like the vena cava filter, these devices are generally permanent implants, deployed through a catheter using the shape-memory effect. Even in the case where no chilling is done to assist deployment, one should consider such devices to be thermally deployed since their equilibrium shape is restored by warming to body temperature.