PERIPHERAL VASCULAR COMPLICATIONS OF CORONARY ANGIOPLASTY BY THE FEMORAL AND BRACHIAL TECHNIQUES

In order to monitor the incidence and types of peripheral vascular com plications in a single institution, we prospectively entered 1,579 cor onary angioplasty cases into a computer data base during the years 199 1 and 1992. Various periprocedural risk factors were analyzed. The pat ients were followed closely to identify complications that occurred ou tside the laboratory or after discharge from the hospital. Peripheral vascular complications occurred in 37 patients (2.37%) and included he matoma 20 (1.27%), retroperitoneal bleeding 7 (.44%), false aneurysm 6 (.38%), occlusion 1 (.06%), infection 2 (.13%), and cholesterol embol i 1 (.06%). Risk factors for complications by multivariate analysis we re older age, female gender, and clinical evidence of peripheral vascu lar disease. Other factors potentially related to vascular trauma or b leeding tendency that were not risk factors in this series were clinic al presentation, use of heparin or thrombolytic agents, blood clotting parameters, and arterial sheath size. There was no significant differ ence between the femoral and brachial approaches in frequency of compl ications (2.5% vs. 1.6%), but femoral complications tended to carry gr eater morbidity. (C) 1994 Wiley-Liss, Inc.