Dealing with complex external iliac artery disease

Abstract

Interventional therapy has emerged as the preferred way to treat the majority of patients with iliac occlusive disease. As Henretta and colleagues1 have identified, however, the results of treating this problem with stenting of extensive external iliac disease are not as successful as treatment of common iliac disease, and the technique they have described may be a way to improve outcomes. Whereas the cause of this inferior patency may relate to the diameter of the external iliac artery or to an inability to achieve adequate expansion of stents, it is clear that increasingly surgeons are combining iliac intervention in this location with some form of outflow enhancement, whether it be common femoral endarterectomy alone or in conjunction with an infrainguinal intervention or bypass grafting.