Chest pain from excluded inferior vena cava filter after stent placement.

Abstract

A 52-year-old patient presented with chronic substernal chest pain 18 months following exclusion of an inferior vena cava (IVC) filter with a self-expanding IVC stent. After a thorough work-up revealed no other possible cause of chest pain, the filter and stent were removed with subsequent resolution of chest pain. Intraoperatively, filter struts were found to have penetrated the posteromedial wall of the IVC and were abutting the periaortic neural plexus. Referred chest pain due to strut penetration of the caval wall is a novel complication of both IVC filters and IVC stents, demonstrating a need for continued surveillance.