Rationale of Surveillance After Endovascular Intervention of Iliac and Femoral Arteries

Abstract

Surveillance following lower extremity bypass, carotid endarterectomy, and endovascular aortic aneurysm repair has become standard of care. Conversely, surveillance following lower extremity endovascular interventions is performed somewhat sporadically, in part because the duplex criteria for recurrent stenoses have been ill-defined. Duplex surveillance provides objective, hemodynamic, and anatomic data both pre- and post-intervention. It appears that duplex surveillance after peripheral endovascular interventions, as with conventional bypass, is beneficial in identifying recurrent lesions which, when accompanied by reintervention, may preclude failure and occlusion. With increasingly well-studied criteria for both follow-up and intervention, it appears that applying routine surveillance following lower extremity endovascular interventions may assist in preventing failure of endovascular interventions.