Use of balloon-expandable stents to treat experimental peripheral pulmonary artery and superior vena caval stenosis: preliminary experience.

Current therapy of congenital or acquired stenoses of the peripheral pulmonary arteries and superior vena cava are frequently ineffective. This report describes our initial experience with the use of a balloon-expandable stainless steel stent to treat experimentally created branch pulmonary artery and superior vena cava stenosis. Fifteen adult mongrel dogs had surgically created stenoses of either a branch pulmonary artery and/or superior vena cava. A balloon-expandable stainless steel (0.076 mm), 3 cm long, intravascular stent was used in all animals. Stents were successfully placed in 13 of 15 dogs (nine with branch pulmonary stenosis and four with superior vena caval stenosis) with hemodynamic and angiographic relief of the stenoses in all. In three animals, successful stent placement was not accomplished because the distal right pulmonary artery was found to be totally obstructed in two and in one dog with combined vena cava and pulmonary stenosis the distal right pulmonary artery was so severely stenotic that the stenosis could not be crossed. Repeat catheterization performed 6 months following stent placement documented persistent gradient relief and angiographic evidence of unobstructed flow through the stent without thrombus formation and with patent side branch vessels. Our preliminary results suggests that balloon-expandable stents are a potential therapy for the treatment of branch pulmonary artery and superior vena cava stenoses.