Troubleshooting techniques for abdominal aortic aneurysm endograft placement: when things go wrong

Abstract

Since the Food and Drug Administration approved the Ancure (Guidant Corp, Menlo Park, CA) and AneuRx (Medtronic Corp, Minneapolis, MN) abdominal aortic aneurysm stent-grafts, there has been a tremendous increase in the number of stent-graft implantations, both in the United States and worldwide. Successful stent-graft deployment requires complex interventional skills and accurate preprocedure planning. Even the most skilled operator may experience intraoperative difficulties during graft deployment. There are intraprocedural complications that are common to all stent-grafts, as well as specific complications that are unique to the particular stent-graft being implanted. The first step to managing an intraprocedural complication is to be able to quickly recognize that a deployment difficulty has occurred. The interventionalist must then be ready to use common troubleshooting techniques to rectify or avoid complications of stent-graft delivery.