Endoluminal treatment of infrarenal aortic aneurysms with the talent system: First experience with a new stent-graft.

Purpose: To report the early clinical experience with the Talent stent-graf t system in the treatment of infrarenal aortic aneurysms. Materials and Met hods: The study group comprised 15 males aged from 51-79 years. A bifurcate d Talent stent-graft was implanted in 9 patients with type B or C aneurysms , a tube graft in 6 patients with a type A aneurysm. The stent-grafts were introduced via a surgical femoral cut-down, for a bifurcated graft a bilate ral surgical access was needed. All procedures were performed as teamwork b y radiologists and vascular surgeons under general anaesthesia in the angio graphy suite. Results: Primary and secondary technical successes were XO an d 86%, respectively. Technical failures were due to access site problems (n = 1; elective open repair), malpositioning of the prosthesis (n = 1; immed iate conversion to open surgery), and primary distal leakage (n = 1; electi ve occlusion by means of distal stent-graft extension). One patient died 15 days after an uneventful stent-graft insertion (30-day mortality 6%). No c omplications were observed during a mean follow-up period of 7.8 months. Th e aneurysmal diameter decreased in 6 patients and remained unchanged in the others. Conclusions: The Talent system revealed satisfactory early results which are comparable to competitive stent-graft systems. An advantage of t his stent-graft device is the availability in a wide range of dimensions. A major disadvantage is the large introducer system (french size 22-27).