Endovascular treatment of acute limb ischemia secondary to fracture of a popliteal artery stent.

The authors report the case of a patient with acute lower limb ischemia (category IIa) after occlusion of the popliteal artery due to fracture of a long indwelling stent. The patient refused surgical therapy for religious reasons, and an interventional revascularization was performed as acute rescue therapy. After reentry into the distal popliteal artery was achieved, the artery was dilated, and the fragmented stent was crushed, followed by implantation of two helical nitinol stents with high radial force and a third self-expandable nitinol stent. Sufficient primary technical success was achieved, and stent patency was present at midterm follow-up.