Treatment of aortocoronary vein graft lesions with membrane-covered stents- A multicenter surveillance trial

Background-Stent implantation in lesions of degenerated aortocoronary vein grafts is associated with a high risk of periprocedural thrombus embolizati on and in-stent restenosis. Methods and Results-In a multicenter study, we followed up 109 consecutive patients (mean age 66+/-8 years, 12% female) who received polytetrafluoroet hylene (PTFE) membrane-covered stents for 125 de novo stenoses in vein graf ts 11+/-5 years after bypass surgery. Stent deployment was successful in al l but 1 patient; 1 patient suffered from subacute stent thrombosis. Six-mon th cardiac mortality was 7% (8 patients), 3 patients (3%) underwent repeat bypass surgery, and 9 patients (8%) required target-lesion PTCA. Repeat ang iography revealed vessel occlusions in 9% and in-stent restenosis in 8% of patients by the end of follow-up, Conclusions-Membrane-covered stents appear to be a safe and efficient treat ment strategy associated with a low incidence of restenosis and target-vess el revascularization. Compared with previous studies, the investigated devi ce is not associated with an increase in mortality or late vessel occlusion s.