INTRACORONARY LOSS OF BALLOON-MOUNTED STENTS - SUCCESSFUL RETRIEVAL WITH A 2 MM MICROSNARE-DEVICE

Intracoronary loss of balloon-mounted stents prior to deployment is a rare event but may result in clinically relevant cardiac ischemia or p eripheral embolization during rescue attempts. In a consecutive series of nearly 400 patients undergoing elective stenting, we encountered s ix instances of intracoronary misplacement. We describe four cases of successful percutaneous retrieval using a 2 mm closed loop nitinol dev ice (''Micro-snare''). Our proposed method of extraction seems to hold advantages over those previously described. (C) 1996 Wiley-Liss Inc.