Emergency surgical intervention after unsuccessful percutaneous transluminal angioplasty and stenting of aortic coarctation

Coarctation of thoracic aorta is an uncommon diagnosis in adults. Catheter-based intervention consisting of primary ballooning and stenting is becoming one of the methods of choice for the treatment of native coarctation. We describe the case of a young adult with coarctation of the aorta treated unsuccessfully with percutaneous transluminal angioplasty and stent implantation that resulted in stent migration into the aortic arch and led to an urgent operative intervention. In one step, we performed the evacuation of the foreign body from the aortic arch as well as the treatment of the aortic coarctation through an extra-anatomical vascular graft interposition between the ascending and descending thoracic aorta. In this article, we discuss the need for emergency surgical intervention in this case. (C) 2011 Published by European Association for Cardio-Thoracic Surgery. All rights reserved.