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The purpose of this paper is to focus on tracheal stent production with the aim of investigating the available devices and improving their performances. The biomedical field is a continuously growing area of the market always in search of the most innovative and competitive solutions for healthcare. Beside the actual critical period of the world economy, it shows continuous improvements in research and innovation.

Within a market analysis and the collaboration between engineering and biomedical research fields, it was outlined a new product concept able to satisfy the patient’s and physician’s requirements with the focus on the enhancement of the stent anchorage. As a result, the concept of a custom- or tailor-made stent was identified as a potential solution. Moreover, additive technologies were identified as the economically sustainable processes for manufacturing these innovative stents. In the present paper, different types of stents were derived from the proposed concept, they were designed, manufactured and their anchorage capability was tested. In particular, the procedures adopted for their design are described and discussed. Moreover, silicone fused deposition modelling was adopted and two types of deposition method, namely, layer-by-layer and continuous, were used to manufacture the devices identifying their pro, cons and limits. Finally, the stents were tested against migration and results were compared with one of the most widely used today.

The results show how additive manufacturing allowed to manufacture more efficient and migration resistant stents.

It is expected that this new stent design will reduce the risk of complications in stenting, as granulation, thanks to a more uniform stress distribution on the trachea tissues. These improved characteristics will allow to enhance the quality of both the product and the patient’s healthcare.

As part of this one‐day conference we have prepared an exhibition of some of the more important sources giving statistical and other data on the Common Market. A Guide to sources of statistics in Common Market countries has been prepared by the Economics Library of British Nylon Spinners Ltd in collaboration with members of the Aslib Economics Group.

Reviewing sources of information in the EEC in a short paper requires a certain facility for avoiding the very problems that cause the most difficulty in practice. This paper can only, therefore, be considered as a guide to the guides of sources of marketing information in the EEC. In finding one's way through the ‘information maze’ to the precise data one is seeking it is helpful to consider the outline of data collection in Europe. The principal sources of information are: