Clinical and angiographic outcome after implantation of a home-made stent for complicated coronary angioplasty.

To defray the escalating costs of coronary stenting, we handmade a balloon-expandable, stainless steel stent, which after experimental evaluation, was implanted in 156 patients undergoing PTCA complicated by a major dissection. The procedural success rate was 98%. The in-hospital course was characterized by a 1.3% cardiopulmonary mortality and a 4.5% nonfatal myocardial infarction rate, while emergency bypass surgery and early repeat PTCA were necessary in only one patient each (0.6%). Clinical 6-mo follow-up in 150 patients revealed no deaths and no myocardial infarctions, and the event-free survival rate was 82%. Six-month control angiography was performed in 93.3% of eligible patients and revealed a restenosis rate of 20%.