Disintegration with right ventricular and pulmonary embolization of a SMART stent: a case report and review of literature.

As composition and design have improved the integrity and durability of peripheral stents, vascular stent fracture and embolization have become less frequent complications of endovascular intervention. However, this phenomenon still remains a possibility with potentially catastrophic consequences, either from damage to cardiac structures or from disruption of vessel integrity, infarction, and thrombosis. Advancements in the tools for foreign body retrieval have allowed the skilled interventionalist to intercede without the need for surgical intervention. We report the case of retrieval of a self-expandable SMART (Cordis, Florida) stent that was deployed for relief of superior vena cava syndrome but fractured and embolized to the right ventricle.