Use of bare‐mounted Palmaz‐Schatz stents employing the stent saddle technique on the delivery balloon: A single center experience

Abstract

The major limitations of the Palmaz-Schatz stent stem from the design of its stent delivery system (SDS). The SDS is bulky and has poor trackability in lesions with proximal tortuosity and/or vessel calcification. The use of bare-mounted Palmaz-Schatz stents on low profile balloons represents an alternate approach for lesions that are not accessible for stenting with the SDS. Thus we evaluated the indications, procedural success rate, and in-hospital complications of patients undergoing bare stenting at a single center between 1 October 1995 through 30 September 1996. A total of 363 coronary interventions were performed during this period, including coronary stenting in 194 vessels. In 18 of these 194 vessels, bare-mounted Palmaz-Schatz stents were used. The indications for bare stenting were: inability to deliver the Palmaz-Schatz stent on SDS for suboptimal angioplasty results or acute/threatened abrupt closure; use of half stents; stenting in vessels < 3.0 mm; intermediate disease in the proximal segment that would have precluded optimal visualization of stent placement; and use of guides 7 French or smaller. Bare stenting was successful in 15 of the 18 patients (vessels) in whom it was attempted. There were no deaths, myocardial infarctions, stent thrombosis, repeat interventions, or significant bleeding in patients with successful bare stent delivery. The stents were successfully retrieved in the three patients in whom the stent could not be advanced into the target coronary segment. One of these patients had a propagated spiral dissection prior to attempts at bare stenting and required emergent bypass surgery. The remaining two patients with failed deployment had suboptimal angioplasty results but had an uncomplicated hospital course. Thus bare stenting represents an alternate percutaneous approach to tackle suboptimal procedural results and/or complications in patients who have failed stent deployment with the standard sheathed stent delivery system currently available in the United States. Cathet. Cardiovasc. Diagn. 41:361–368, 1997. Published 1997 Wiley-Liss Inc.1 This article is a US government work and, as such, is in the public domain in the United States of America.