Tag: endoRE

Salvage: A different approach to graft infections in the groin

Post author By Docpark
Post date 2 May 2017
4 Comments on Salvage: A different approach to graft infections in the groin

The principles of salvage are in rescuing valuable undamaged goods in the setting of catastrophe. This guided me when a patient was flown in from an outside institution to our ICU with a saline soaked OR towel in his right groin -he had had an aorto-bifemoral bypass for aorto-iliac occlusive disease a year prior, but had never properly healed his right groin wound which continued to drain despite VAC therapy and wound care. On revealing his groin, this is what I saw:

A CT scan was sent with the patient but has been lost to time, and it showed a patent aorto-bifemoral bypass send flow around an occluded distal aorta and iliac arteries. The graft did not have a telltale haze around it nor a dark halo of fluid which signaled to me that it was likely well incorporated and only sick in the exposed part. The patient was not septic, but had grown MRSA from the wound which was granulating from the extensive wound care that had been delivered.

I felt that it would be possible to move his anastomosis point more proximally on the external iliac in a sterile field (figure above), and then close, then endarterectomize the occluded external iliac artery after removing the distal graft, then after vein patching, cover the repair with a sartorius muscle flap. It would salvage the remaining graft and avoid a much larger, more intense operation which was plan B. To prepare for that, I had his deep femoral veins mapped.

The patient was prepped and draped, the groin was excluded by placing a lap pad soaked in peroxide/betadine/saline solution (recipe for “brown bubbly” liter saline, a bottle of peroxide, a bottle of betadine), and covering with an adesive drape. The rest of the abdomen was then draped with a second large adhesive drape. A retroperitoneal (transplant-type) right lower quadrant incision was made (below) and the external iliac artery and graft were exposed. As predicted on CT, the graft was well incorporated.

The external iliac artery was opened and focally endarterectomized of occlusive plaque (image below). The adventitia had good quality despite the longstanding occlusion.

The graft was mobilized and transected and anastomosed end to side to this segment of artery (below). Dissecting was made difficult by how well incorporated it was.

The wound was irrigated (with brown bubbly) and closed, dressed, and sealed over with the adhesive drape. The groin wound was then revealed and the graft pulled out (below).

Remote endarterectomy using a Vollmer ring was used -in this case I didn’t use fluoroscopy given the short distance to the terminus of the plaque which i had mobilized in the pelvis.

The plaque came out easily and was not infected appearing. It is shown below ex vivo.

A segment of saphenous vein was harvested from the patient medially and the arteriotomy was patched. The sartorius muscle was mobilized and applied as a flap over this. The wound was irrigated with brown bubbly and packed open with the intention of VAC application.

The patient healed very rapidly and remains infection free. I had used this approach on several occasions in the past and twice more recently. It truly is salvage as it preserves the uninfected graft while never exposing it to the infection in the process of operating. It avoids having to remove the whole graft which then damages the left side -I have seen other surgeons take this approach elsewhere taking a all-or-nothing approach to graft infection to considerable morbidity to the patient. It avoids having to harvest deep femoral vein -another large operation to which the body responds truculently. The patient recently came by for his 4 year followup, still smoking, but legs preserved.

Followup At 4 Years

The patient came back in followup -it has been 4 years since his infection was repaired. He was complaining of short distance claudication. His wound healed well and remains closed. CTA shows along with his short segment SFA occlusion which we will treat, a widely patent R. EIA (below).

The remote endarterectomy of the external iliac artery remains patent. Compare this to the preop CTA which I found and wasn’t available when I posted this case originally:

The chronically occluded EIA can be readily seen. The artery shown in the current CTA is that recanalized artery.

Tags aortic graft infection, endoRE, graft infection, groin infection, sartorius flap

AAA AIOD aortoiliac occlusive disease (AIOD) bypass Commentary EndoRE EVAR imaging kidney transplant remote endarterectromy techniques

When both iliac systems are occluded below an abdominal aortic aneurysm: hybrid techniques on the cutting edge

Post author By Docpark
Post date 2 Apr 2017
No Comments on When both iliac systems are occluded below an abdominal aortic aneurysm: hybrid techniques on the cutting edge

AAA with iliac arterial occlusion -arrows point to right external iliac and left common iliac arterial occlusions

The patient is an 70 year old man referred for evaluation of claudication that occurred at under a block of walking. He reported no rest pain or tissue loss. He smoked heavily up to a pack a day, with congestive heart failure with an ejection fraction of 40%, prior history of myocardial infarction treated with PTCA, and pacemaker, and moderate dyspnea on exertion.

On examination, patient had a flaccid abdomen through which the AAA could be palpated, and he had no palpable femoral artery pulse bilaterally, nor anything below. He had a cardiac murmur and moderate bilateral edema. Preoperative risk evaluation placed him in the high risk category because of his heart failure, coronary artery disease, and his mild to moderate pulmonary disease.
CTA (pictured above and below) showed a 5.1cm infrarenal AAA with an hourglass shaped neck with moderate atherosclerosis in the neck, an occluded left common iliac artery with external iliac artery reconstitution via internal iliac artery collaterals, and a right external iliac artery occlusion with common femoral artery reconstitution. There was calcified right common femoral artery plaque.

Preop left and right centerlines EVAR-ENDORE.jpg

Treatment options included open surgical aortobifemoral bypass with exclusion of the AAA, total endovascular repair with some form of endo-conduit revascularization of the occluded segments of iliac artery, or a hybrid repair.

Open aortic repair in patients with heart failure and moderate COPD can be performed safely (ref 1). Dr. Hollier et al, in the golden age of open repair, reported a 5.7% mortality rate operating on 106 patients with severe category of heart, lung, kidney, or liver disease.

Typically, the hybrid repair involves sewing in a conduit to deliver the main body of a bifurcated or unibody stent graft when endovascular access is not possible. Despite techniques to stay minimally invasive -largely by staying retroperitoneal, this is not a benign procedure (ref 2). Nzara et al reviewed 15,082 patients from the NSQIP database breaking out 1% of patients who had conduit or direct puncture access.

Matched analyses of comorbidities revealed that patients requiring [conduit or direct access] had higher perioperative mortality (6.8% vs. 2.3%, P = 0.008), cardiac (4.8% vs. 1%, P = 0.004), pulmonary (8.8% vs. 3.4%, P = 0.006), and bleeding complications (10.2% vs. 4.6%, P = 0.016).

Despite these risks, I have performed AUI-FEM-FEM with good results with the modification of deploying the terminus of the stent graft across an end to end anastomosis of the conduit graft to the iliac artery (below), resulting in seal and avoiding the problems of bleeding from the usually heavily diseased artery

Aorto-uni-iliac stent graft across end to end conduit anastomosis to fem-fem bypass

The iliac limbs of some stent graft systems will have proximal flares and can be used in a telescoping manner to create an aorto-uni-iliac (AUI) configuration in occlusive disease. The Cook RENU converter has a 22mm tall sealing zone designed for deployment inside another stent graft and would conform poorly to this kind of neck as a primary AUI endograft which this was not designed to act as. The Endurant II AUI converter has a suprarenal stent which I preferred to avoid in this patient as the juxtarenal neck likely was aneurysmal and might require future interventions

I chose to perform a right sided common femoral cutdown and from that exposure, perform an iliofemoral remote endarterectomy of the right external iliac to common femoral artery. This in my experience is a well tolerated and highly durable procedure (personal data). Kavanagh et al (ref 3) presented their experience with iliofemoral EndoRE and shared their techniques. This would create the lumenal diameter necessary to pass an 18F sheath to deliver an endograft. I chose the Gore Excluder which would achieve seal in the hourglass shaped neck and allow for future visceral segment intervention if necessary without having a suprarenal stent in the way. I planned on managing the left common iliac artery via a percutaneous recanalization.

The patient’s right common femoral artery was exposed in the usual manner. Wire access across the occluded external iliac artery was achieved from a puncture of the common femoral artery. Remote endarterectomy (EndoRE) was performed over a wire from the common femoral artery to the external iliac artery origin (pictures below).

External iliac to common femoral artery plaque removed with Moll ring cutter (LeMaitre Vascular) over a wire

The 18F sheath went up with minimal resistance, and the EVAR was performed in the usual manner. The left common iliac artery occlusion was managed percutaneously from a left brachial access. The stent graft on the left was terminated above the iliac bifurcation and a self expanding stent was used to extend across the iliac bifurcation which had a persistent stenosis after recanalization.

The patient recovered well and was sent home several days postprocedure. He returned a month later with healed wounds and palpable peripheral pulses. He no longer had claudication and CTA showed the aneurysm sac to have no endoleak (figures below).

post CTA EVAR-ENDORE

Composite imaging showing normal appearing right iliofemoral segment (EIA + CFA) and patent left common iliac artery.

Discussion
I have previously posted on using EndoRE (remote endarterectomy) for both occlusive disease and as an adjunct in EVAR. Iliofemoral EndoRE has excellent patency in the short and midterm, and in my experience has superior patency compared to the femoropopliteal segment where EndoRE is traditionally used. This case illustrates both scenarios. While the common iliac artery occlusions can be expected to have acceptable patencies with percutaneous interventions, the external iliac lesions typically fail when managed percutaneously especially when the stents are extended across the inguinal ligament. The external iliac artery is quite mobile and biologically, in my opinon, behaves much as the popliteal artery and not like the common iliac. Also, the common femoral arterial plaque is contiguous with the external iliac plaque, making in my mind, imperative to clear out all the plaque rather than what can just be seen through a groin exposure.

On microscopy, the external iliac artery is restored to a normal patent artery -I have sent arterial biopsies several months after endarterectomy and the artery felt and sewed like a normal artery and had normal structure on pathology. This implies that the external iliac can be restored to a near normal status and patients that are turned down for living related donor transplantation of kidneys can become excellent recipients. In this case, this hybrid approach effectively treated his claudication but also sealed off his moderate sized AAA while not precluding future visceral segment surgery or intervention with a large suprarenal stent.

Reference

Hollier LH et al. J Vasc Surg 1986; 3:712-7.
Nzara R et al. Ann Vasc Surg. 2015 Nov;29(8):1548-53
Kavanagh CM et al. J Vasc Surg 2016;64:1327-34

Tags aorto-uni-iliac, AUI, AUI-FEM-FEM, EIA endoRE, endoRE, hybrid technique

EndoRE EVAR kidney transplant remote endarterectromy techniques TEVAR

External iliac remote endarterectomy restores the artery to normal, opening the way for EVAR, TAVR, TEVAR, and transplant: alternate applications of EndoRE

preop-cta

One of the nice things about practicing at the Clinic is being able to offer unique solutions. A severely diseased or occluded external iliac artery (EIA) can be a vexing problem, particularly if bilateral, in this endovascular era. Many cardiovascular devices require femoral access that has to traverse compromised iliac arteries -those with large (>16F) delivery systems require a sufficiently wide path to get the devices to the heart and aorta. Also, living related donor kidney transplantation is predicated on minimizing risk to maximize results and having significant iliac plaque negates one as a recipient for this high stakes elective procedure. In situations where the EIA is too small to accommodate devices because of atherosclerotic plaque, the typical solution is placement of a conduit to the common iliac artery or the aorta. The practice of “endopaving” with a covered stent graft and ballooning is also described, but its long term outcomes are not reported and the internal iliac artery is usually sacrificed in this maneuver.

This patient presents with lifestyle limiting claudication and an absent right femoral pulse. ABI is moderately reduced on the right to 0.57, and he had no rest pain. CTA at our clinic revealed an occluded EIA bracketed by severely calcified and nearly occlusive plaque of the common iliac artery (CIA) and common femoral artery (CFA).

Centerline Projection

The patient was amenable to operation. Traditionally, this would have been treated with some form of bypass -aortofemoral or femorofemoral with a common femoral endarterectomy. While endovascular therapy of the occluded segment is available, one should not expect the patencies to be any better than that of occlusive lesions (CTO’s) in other arteries. Hybrid open/endovascular therapy is an option as well with CFA endarterecotmy and crossing CIA to EIA stents, but I have a better solution.

The common femoral endarterectomy rarely ends at the inguinal ligament, and is uniquely suitable for remote endarterectomy, a procedure from the early to mid twentieth century.

Steps in Remote Endarterectomy

The addition of modern fluoroscopic imaging and combining with endovascular techniques makes this a safe and durable operation.

pre intervention.png

The patient was operated on in a hybrid endovascular OR suite. A right groin incision was made to expose the common femoral artery for endarterectomy and left common femoral access was achieved for angiographic access, but also to place a wire across the occlusion into the common femoral artery.

All actions on the external iliac artery plaque are done with an up-and-over wire, allowing for swift action in the instance that arterial perforation or rupture occur. This event is exceedingly rare when the operation is well planned. With this kind of access, an occlusive balloon or repairing stent graft can be rapidly delivered.

The common femoral endarterectomy is done from its distal most point and the Vollmer ring is used to mobilize the plaque. A Moll Ring Cutter (LeMaitre Vascular) is then used to cut the plaque.

Ring dissection.png

The plaque is extracted and re-establishes patency of the EIA.

Plaque Specimen

The plaque end point is typically treated with a stent -in this case, the common iliac plaque was also treated.

What is nice about this approach is that this artery has been restored to nearly its original condition. I have taken biopsies of the artery several months after the procedure in the process of using the artery as inflow for a cross femoral bypass, and the artery clamped and sewed like a normal artery and the pathology returned normal artery.

This has several advantages over conduit creation which can be a morbid and high risk procedure in patients who require minimally invasive approach. A graft is avoided. The artery is over 8mm in diameter where with stenting up to 8mm with an occlusive plaque, the danger of rupture is present, and often ballooning is restricted to 6mm-7mm. This is insufficient for many TEVAR grafts and TAVR valves.

For patients being worked up for living related donor transplants who are turned down because of the presence of aortoiliac plaque, those with the right anatomy can undergo this procedure and potentially become candidates after a period of healing.

Tags arterial restoration, endoRE, EVAR, iliac conduit, living related donor kidney transplant, remote endarterectomy, TAVR, TEVAR

bypass EndoRE PAD remote endarterectromy techniques

The femoral bifurcation does not tolerate endovascular miscalculation

Post author By Docpark
Post date 18 Dec 2015
No Comments on The femoral bifurcation does not tolerate endovascular miscalculation

Sketch185115048

The patient presented with complaints of leg and foot pain with sitting and short distance calf claudication, being unable to walk more than 100 feet. This is unusual because sitting usually relieves ischemic rest pain. He is in late middle age and developed claudication a year prior to presentation that was treated with stent grafting of his superficial femoral artery from its origin to Hunter’s canal at his local hospital. This relieved his claudication only briefly, but when the pain recurred a few months after treatment, it was far worse than what he had originally. Now, when he sat at his desk, his foot would go numb very quickly and he would have to lie down to relieve his pain.

On examination, the patient was moderately obese with overhanging belly. He had a palpable right femoral pulse, but nothing below was palpable. He had multiphasic signals in the dorsalis pedis and posterior tibial arteries. The left leg had a normal arterial exam. Pulse volume recording and segmental pressures were measured:

preop PVR2

These are taken with the patient lying down which was the position that relieved his pain, and the PVR’s show some diminishment of inflow. It would be easy at this point to declare the patient’s pain to be due to neuropathy or spinal stenosis, but because of his inability to walk more than a hundred feet and because of his severe pain with sitting, I went ahead and obtained a CTA.

3DVR

The CTA showed he had an occluded superficial femoral artery (SFA) with patent profunda femoral artery (PFA) with reconstitution of an above knee popliteal artery with multivessel runoff. The 3DVR image showed his inguinal crease to be right over the femoral bifurcation which is not an unsual finding, but his stent graft was partially occluding his profunda femoral artery.

CTA centerline

I decided to take him to the operating room to relieve his PFA of this obstruction. My plan was to remove the stent graft at the origin of the SFA and at the same time, remove the plaque and occluded stent graft from his SFA to restore it to patency.

In the OR, on exposing his SFA, I discovered that because of his overhanging belly, his inguinal ligament had sagged and was compressing his femoral bifurcation.

Sketch185115048

This explained his presentation. The stent graft really had no chance as when he sat, the belly and ligament compressed it at the origin, and because it partially occluded the origin of the PFA, sitting probably pinched off flow completely. The 3dVR image shows the mid segment of PFA to have little contrast density -this is not because of thrombus, but because of the obstruction, the PFA was getting collateral flow from the hypogastric artery.

The stent graft was removed at its origin via a longitudinal arteriotomy after remote endarterectomy of the distal graft.

In this case, the Multitool (LeMaitre) was useful in dissecting the plaque and stent graft because of its relatively stiff shaft compared to the standard Vollmer rings. The technique of EndoRE has been described in prior posts (link).

procedure picture

The stent graft came out in a single segment -they come out easier than bare stents.

post angio composite The patient regained palpable pulses in his right foot and recovered well, being discharged home after a 4 day stay.

While one could argue that just taking out the short piece of occlusive stent graft over the PFA was all that was necessary, I feel that there is no added harm in sending down a dissector around the stent, and in this patient there was restoration of his SFA patency which was the intent of the original procedure.

Unlike PTFE bypasses that sometimes fail with thromboembolism, SFA EndoRE fails with development of focal stenoses. From a conversation I had with Dr. Frans Moll at the VEITH meeting, I found that he has had good experience with using drug coated balloons in the treatment of these recurrent stenoses.

At the time of discharge, the patient was relieved of his rest pain, and was no longer claudicating. The common femoral artery, its bifurcation, and the profunda femoral artery remain resistent to attempts at endovascular treatment, and remain in the domain of open surgery. And in retrospect, the history and physical examination had all the clues to the eventual answer to the oddities of the patient’s complaints. The combination of inguinal crease, abdominal pannus, and low hanging inguinal ligament meant these structures acted to crush the stent graft and femoral bifurcation.

Tags endoRE, stent removal

EndoRE PAD remote endarterectromy

My First Intentional Stent Removal Case -Arterial Restoration

Post author By Docpark
Post date 4 Sep 2015
No Comments on My First Intentional Stent Removal Case -Arterial Restoration

In 2007, at which I had performed about 20 standard EndoRE (Remote Endarterectomy, LeMaitre Vascular) cases over about two years, this patient in his later 40’s presented to me with ischemic rest pain of his right foot. He was a current heavy smoker who initially had severe claudication and a TASC D occlusion of his right superficial femoral artery. Prior to being referred to me, he had undergone a mitral valve replacement from which he recovered uneventfully. He then had treatment of claudication starting with iliac stenting and a vein bypass. He had undergone a femoral artery to below knee popliteal artery bypass with reversed greater saphenous vein which became occluded after being complicated by MRSA wound infections. When this graft developed problems at the distal anastomosis, he underwent revision with a jump graft from the arm. This graft went down after he developed MRSA infection of the cephalic vein harvest site. He then underwent SFA stenting with 5 femoral stents (at that time, long stents were not available), but these occluded and his access site was the nidus of MRSA based sepsis. He had had multiple hospitalizations for MRSA infection from phlebotomy sites when he presented. He had reintervention for in-stent restenosis, first with balloons, then an extra stent, then cryoballoon therapy, each episode complicated by MRSA infection. He presented with severe claudication and nocturnal rest pain. On exam, he had dependent rubor, elevation pallor and absence of pulses, despite having fairly benign anatomy on CTA.

There was two vessel runoff below a reconstituted popliteal artery, with stent occlusion and visible stump of the vein bypass.

My options included bypass with PTFE, cadaveric vein, endovascular recanalization of the occluded stents, or EndoRE. While considering the MRSA which had been extensively worked up prior to presentation by ID including TEE and multiple cultures, it was decided that he was firmly colonized with MRSA despite efforts at eradication, and PTFE was not an option. Cadaveric vein I have used in infections with acceptable short term results -never great long term except for one individual who I inherited from a surgeon in Kansas who maintained a decade of patency of a cadaveric vein to tibial artery bypass with coumadin alone. This patient was not likely to be so lucky. Endovascular recanalization with atherectomy versus laser was considered, but I had at that point become disillusioned with those modalities in such extensive disease.

EndoRE made the most sense because it was my observation in a prior patient in whom I had unintentionally removed a 4cm stent with plaque that stents are placed inside plaques and when you remove plaque, theoretically, the stents have a layer of plaque between them at the adventitia. Also, he had none of the extensive calcium that made regular EndoRE challenging. Also, it would be repaired with native tissues through a single groin incision, and covered with a sartorius flap. And that is what I did.

The common femoral artery was exposed and the SFA controlled. The plaque dissection was started and the ring fitted around plaque and stent. There was a little more friction than expected, but I did inject via a catheter cold LR with the idea that it would shrink the nitinol a bit. Also, the wire that guided the catheter did double duty as a dissector as I was subintimal with it. The rings traveled well to the end point which I achieved with little difficulty.

Vollmer Ring Dissector around plaque & stents

The end point was dissected and required a short self expanding stent. The patient recovered well and was discharged, but as in prior admissions, developed a cellulitis on the groin wound that resolved with Vancomycin, presumably with MRSA. A CTA done at that admission showed excellent patency and he had palpable pulses.

Three years later, he underwent intervention by one of my partners in cardiology at that time for a restenosis in the mid SFA and had ballooning and a stent -the second set of stents in this patient, and by the time I left Iowa, he was still patent and walking.

This operation fails with randomly distributed TASC A lesions that develop in sites of remnant smooth muscle. I think today, I would treat with a drug eluting balloon. Thrombosis is the other failure mode, but unlike PTFE grafts, there is no thromboembolism of the outflow, rather, the SFA thromboses with reconstitution of the original state, and is amenable to thrombolysis. Smokers such as this patient and those with limited outflow are anticoagulated with warfarin.

The Europeans call this now arterial restoration. The vessel is returned to its baseline state with a full complement of collaterals which are revived. Also, compliance is restored and I believe this plays a significant role in maintenance of patency. Also, as the native tissues heal, they return to a normal ultrastructure -I have taken pathology specimen with aortic punches to perform bypasses to the other leg from external iliacs treated so, and they were microscopically and visibly normal.

Tags arterial restoration, endoRE, stent removal

AIOD aortoiliac occlusive disease (AIOD) CTA EndoRE PAD remote endarterectromy techniques

EndoRE-ABF -an alternative to the EndoABF which is in turn an alternative to the ABF.

Post author By Docpark
Post date 6 May 2015
No Comments on EndoRE-ABF -an alternative to the EndoABF which is in turn an alternative to the ABF.

The patient is 70 year old woman with prior history of smoking who developed severe claudication and near rest pain. She was unable to walk more than 50 feet before having to stop due to severe leg pain. On exam, neither femoral artery pulses were palpable. PVR’s (pulse volume recordings) and ABI’s (ankle brachial index) are shown below.

PVR’s demonstrate the presence of severe inflow (aortoiliac occlusive disease or AIOD). CTA was acquired and the findings were consistent with the PVR’s.

There was diffuse bilateral iliac atherosclerotic plaque with occlusion of the right common femoral artery and left common and external iliac artery. The 3DVR (three dimensional virtual reality) reconstruction image below shows this as well as the abdominal and pelvic wall collaterals feeding the legs around the occluded iliofemoral system.

Plans were made to perform a hybrid common femoral and profunda femoral endarterectomy, remote external iliac artery endarterectomy (EndoRE), and common iliac artery stenting. The specific challenges to this case was getting into and staying in the true lumen. Typically, this is easiest to achieve from a left arm access with wires being pushed antegrade, but in a smaller person, particularly woman, this increases the chances for access site complications. My plan was to expose both common femoral arteries and get control of the external iliac arteries at the inguinal ligament and the profunda femoral arteries at the point the proximal plaque dissipated -typically at the second branch point, and then get micropuncture access of the right iliac system by accessing from the common femoral plaque. This would give me true lumen access, and with a sheath and curved catheter (VCF in this case, but a similarly shaped OMNI Flush catheter would do as well), wire access up and across the occluded left iliac system could be achieved and the wire retrieved from the left common femoral artery. This up and over access with the wire allows for control of the aortic bifurcation and both iliac systems.

I perform EndoRE over this wire -this allows for quick access if the artery is ruptured. To minimize blood loss, I gain control of the common femoral artery in the following fashion -a 4cm segment of common femoral artery is left intact and looped above the inferior epigastrics -this loop is brought out in the lateral lower quadrant of the abdomen so that the loop doesn’t travel distally over the arteriotomy. The second loop adjacent to the arteriotomy is sent through periadventitial tissues behind the artery to keep the loop migrating over the arteriotomy. The arteriotomy is created from the distal CFA (common femoral artery) onto the profunda femoral artery (PFA) where the endarterectomy is started. A separate arteriotomy on the superficial femoral artery (SFA) allows me to divide the plaque and mobilize the proximal segment up to the SFA origin, freeing the CFA plaque in this manner. It also gives me the option to perform EndoRE of the SFA if warranted. The dissected plaque and system of loops which I call the blood lock is shown below:

The yellow loops are major control points (the blood lock loop is drawn in the picture above) and the red loops are around smaller branch arteries. At this point, micropuncture access through the plaque core was achieved into the true lumen of the yet patent EIA (external iliac artery, picture below).

The right EIA plaque was mobilized with a Vollmer ring dissector, and cut with a Moll ring cutter (LeMaitre).

This allowed for cutting and removal of the plaque.

Up and over access and control of the wire from the contralateral (left) arteriotomy allowed for EndoRE on the other side. The occluded left common iliac plaque was ballooned and wire access into the aorta from the left was achieved.

Kissing balloon angioplasty was performed with revascularization of the aortoiliac bifurcation and common iliac arteries.

The stents were extended across the dissected end points of the external iliac artery origins. The arteriotomies were closed with bovine pericardial patches. Because the PFA were of small caliber, to avoid narrowing the distal end of the patch, the patches were sewn over Argyll shunts which also allowed perfusion of the legs during the suturing of the patches. The loops made this a straighforward maneuver.

The completed CFA to PFA patch on the left is shown below:

Closure involved reapproximating the Scarpa’s type investing fascia of the femoral triangle and a running dermal layer of absorbable monofilament, dressed with a surgical glue. No drains were used, but if needed, they would be exited through the counter incisions created for the EIA loops.

The patient recovered well. I always use cell salvage -sometimes, profundaplasties can be bloody, particularly if they are in reoperative fields. The ABI’s and PVR’s at the ankles improved significantly.

The postoperative CTA shows good results as well. Below is the composite right and left centerline from aorta to the PFA’s.

The 3DVR reconstruction images are shown below, with the comparison to preop shown in the first image of this blog entry:

The pre and postoperative images of the centerlines (composited) are shown below:

EndoABF is an established hybrid procedure involving an open endarterectomy of the common femoral and PFA/SFA with iliac balloon angioplasty and stenting, often taking the stents distally into the CFA and the patch to deal with complex distal EIA plaque. This procedure, which would be an EndoRE ABF, offers some advantages in eliminating the need for EIA stents which are often placed across the inguinal ligament and into the patch during EndoABF. In my experience, the EIA EndoRE performed as an extension of a CFA endarterectomy is safe, and made even safer by performing the EndoRE over a wire. Published results from Europe shows for TASC C and D disease, EIA EndoRE has excellent patency, and I would expect the same here. EndoRE and Endo ABF both offer advantages over traditional ABF, particularly in patients with medical comorbidities.

Tags aortobifemoral bypass, EIA endoRE, EndoABF, endoRE, hybrid revascularization, iliac stenting, profundaplasty

EndoRE PAD remote endarterectromy

Should the SFA be revascularized during an inflow procedure?

Post author By Docpark
Post date 30 Apr 2015
No Comments on Should the SFA be revascularized during an inflow procedure?

The patient is a 70 year old man who arrived with complaints of worsening claudication, worse on the left leg. He smokes over a pack a day. On exam, he only had femoral pulses, nothing was palpable below. PVR showed multilevel disease with an ABI of 0.42 on the left leg.

CTA was done showing that both his SFA and PFA were occluded, along with occlusion of his AT in the mid leg, and tibioperoneal trunk.

There is a reconstitution point on the PFA, and there is also SFA constitution. Looking at this, it was apparent to me that it would be possible to endarterectomize the whole of the iliofemoral and femoropopliteal system from a single groin incision, but the question being, would a profundaplasty be sufficient.

Arrow points to calcium free terminus for SFA EndoRE

The textbook answer is profundaplasty, but given my experience with endarterectomy, it has become apparent that removing all the plaque, including CFA and iliofemoral plaque reduces the chance that clamp injury and stenosis occur, and that placed in the common iliac system have better patency than those placed in the external iliac, particularly crossing the inguinal ligament into a patch.

The other observation is that with this exposure, SFA remote endarterectomy is very simple to do, but becomes more difficult in a redo situation. The only problem with going ahead with it is that the runoff is poor -all three tibial vessels occlude, but a very robust posterior tibial artery reconstitutes proximally from well developed collaterals.

The CFA, PFA, and SFA were exposed as shown in my sketch at the beginning of the post. Wire access up and over from the right side allowed for secure control of the aortoiliac segment. The endarterectomy was started from the PFA reconstitution point and the CFA plaque was mobilized. The SFA plaque was transected in a proximal arteriotomy and the plaque was mobilized with a ring to its origin. The CFA plaque then was mobilized with the ring dissector over a wire (for security in case of rupture), up to the EIA origin and cut.

The distal SFA plaque was endarterectomized to the planned end point above the knee joint.

The specimen is shown below.

The arteriotomies were repaired with patches. The common iliac artery was stented to improve the flow. The SFA end point was managed with a stent, placed proximal to the first large geniculate collateral.

Completion angiograms show widely patent EIA, CFA, PFA, and SFA

The patient recovered and was discharged on POD#3. His postop ABI’s are shown below.

They are improved compared to preop, with ABI’s of 0.65. Notably, he did have a weakly palpable posterior tibial artery pulse, and multiphasic signals in all three tibial vessels. While I don’t know if the SFA revascularization will stay open, I am confident the PFA will, and this will keep him from his symptoms recurring and is a durable procedure.

Ideally, if he had needed a distal revascularization, a vein bypass would be the answer, but in the setting of inadequate conduit, it is very simple to endarterectomize from the below knee popliteal artery the remaining plaque and either patch to the patent tibioperoneal trunk or perform a short POP to posterior tibial artery bypass. He did not require this.

I don’t know the answer to the titular question, but in the setting of an inflow procedure, the best chance at opening the SFA is during the inflow procedure because of the exposure, and it is very simple to do when the lesion is minimally calcified.

Tags aortoiliac occlusive disease, endoRE, profundaplasty

EndoRE PAD remote endarterectromy techniques

Removing Occluded Stents For Critical Limb Ischemia

Post author By Docpark
Post date 25 Apr 2015
No Comments on Removing Occluded Stents For Critical Limb Ischemia

The patient severe claudication and nocturnal rest pain and had undergone an inflow procedure at another hospital consisting of a common femoral endarterectomy and a single stent to the external iliac artery near its origin from the iliac bifurcation. He also had undergone a concurrent SFA atherectomy which closed and was treated with SFA stents extending from the SFA origin to the above knee popliteal artery. Unfortunately, his rest pain worsened.

On exam, he had a femoral pulse only and no distal pulses, only monophonic and weak pedal signals. The right groin wound had been treated for postoperative wound infection and there was still some swelling and a stitch abscess, but no deep infection. CTA showed that his profunda femoral artery had a focal dissection or stenosis at the origin along with overhang of his SFA stents across the origin of the PFA. The SFA stents were occluded along their whole length. There was remnant disease of the external iliac artery as well.

There was reconstitution of a diseased but patent above knee popliteal artery with three vessel runoff. He had had harvest of his greater saphenous vein. Treatment options included multisegment arm vein with redo profundaplasty, but given the inflammation around his recently operated, recently infected groin, I was concerned for wound infection. He was also quite disabled by his worsened pain. The other option was to access the left common femoral artery and placed a sheath up and over and wire across the diseased profunda and intervene on it, but with the stent in place, I would have to place likely another stent across the origin. I could then attempt a bypass with arm vein or prosthetic graft using this compromised artery as inflow for a bypass to the below knee popliteal artery or a tibial vessel but I doubted this would be durable, nor resistant to infection if prosthetic was used.

Remote endarterectomy (EndoRE) gave me a third option. It is a hybrid technique, but based on an old and established technique of open remote endarterectomy dating from the 60’s. Rings (Vollmer Rings, LeMaitre Vascular) are used to dissect occlusive plaque under fluoroscopy, and a cutting ring (Moll Ring Cutter, LeMaitre Vascular) is used to cut the plaque at the chosen location. Because the distal end point of dissection is not surgically exposed, but rather fluoroscopically guided, it is termed Remote Endarterectomy. Wire skills are required to access and repair any dissections that may occur.

I have presented in the past a series of cases where I removed occluded stents. Because the dissection is carried out outside the plaque, it is also outside the stent. Retrograde EndoRE of SFA plaque can be carried out up to the SFA origin, and avoid a groin incision which in this case was important. Therefore, a proximal thigh exposure of the SFA and EndoRE was planned with endovascular access by left CFA as described.

The SFA was a hard, calcified pipe and control was achieved with vessel loops which allow passage of the ring and occlusion of the artery once the plaque and stents were removed. The artery was opened via longitudinal arrteriotomy and the plaque mobilized and divided. The proximal SFA plaque was then dissected (above and below).

There was immediate establishment of a robust pulse in the proximal SFA after removal of the plaque.

Distally, the plaque would not mobilize at a point in the artery where there was laxity in the artery and especially adherent plaque and therefore, the distal SFA was cut down on to reaccess the stent from below.

Cutdown to reaccess plaque, basically a reversion to the original pre-endovascular technique.

The distal plaque was cut with a Moll Ring Cutter. The removed specimen in total is below.

The arteriotomies were repaired with patch angioplasties using bovine pericardium. This allowed for completing the procedure with endovascular techniques which included the distal end point dissection, profunda stenosis, and external iliac stenosis.

Distal end point managed with self expanding stent.

EIA

At completion, there was a palpable dorsalis pedis artery pulse. The composite angio with preop CTA centerline reconstruction are shown below.

He had relief of his symptoms. Prior to discharge, ABI and PVR’s show normalization of flow to his foot.

Conclusion: In my experience, the longevity of these lesions is dependent on the same factors dictating other revascularizations -excellence of inflow, optimization of profunda outflow, and good tibial outflow. The conduit, being the recanalized original artery, is not as good as a single vein, but it remodels and becomes normal artery based on micro pathology. Failure occurs at the stent with the usual restenosis that can occur in some but not all people, and in isolated points in the artery where likely remnant tissues scar creating focal lesions. Frequent surveillance achieves acceptable primary and secondary patencies. Thromboses do occur. Unlike PTFE grafts, thromboses in EndoRE is usually limited to the recanalized artery without distal embolization. Stent removal is challenging but feasible. In this patient, a second cut down was required to achieve plaque and stent removal. The groin was not re-entered, avoiding dissection in a recently infected, surgical wound. If the popliteal was occluded, a popliteal endarterectomy via a below knee cutdown is possible achieving total femoropopliteal plaque clearance, and the below knee popliteal artery can then be used for a very short bypass to one of the tibial arteries if indicated and if autologous vein is limited in availability.

EndoRE offers a third option after bypass and intervention and should be in a vascular surgeon’s armamentarium.

Tags endoRE, remote endarterectomy

PAD techniques TEVAR

External iliac remote endarterectomy in lieu of a conduit for TEVAR

Post author By Docpark
Post date 18 Feb 2015
No Comments on External iliac remote endarterectomy in lieu of a conduit for TEVAR

The patient had diffuse atherosclerosis with small luminal area even in areas without calcified plaque. It predicted inaccessibility for the 22 French sheath required to deliver the 32mm C-TAG device to be placed for a symptomatic type B thoracic aortic dissection associated with a small but expanding proximal aneurysm.

My options included direct aortic puncture, an aortofemoral conduit, or an endoconduit. The aorta was heavily calcified and the bifurcation was narrowed by circumferential plaque down to 6-7mm at its narrowest and the left iliac had a severe narrowing due to this plaque. The common femoral artery was severely diseased with a lumen diameter of 4mm due to heavily calcified plaque.

I have come to favor direct aortic puncture over conduits, but the heavily calcified aorta and the absence of safe areas to clamp made me think about other options. My experience with endoconduits has been limited to revising problems of endoconduits from elsewhere, but others report it as a feasible option.

The problem with a long artery narrowed with irregular plaque and even intimal thickening is that it will readily expand to accommodate a large sheath but removing it involves the frictional resistance of the whole artery and typically the “iliac on a stick” avulsion involves the whole length of external iliac artery, likely because the common iliac is anchored by the aortoiliac plaque, the smaller diameter of the EIA, and the longer more tortuous path offering greater resistance in the EIA compared to the aorto-common iliac segment.

Remote endarterectomy, a technique involving endarterectomizing an artery through a single arteriotomy, offers the possibility of increasing the lumen of even a mildly diseased artery and reducing the frictional coefficient, assuming the remnant smooth adventitia is less resistant than rough irregular intimal plaque.

The plan was to expose the right common femoral artery and endarterectomize it and gain wire access from the R. CFA. A wire would be placed on the left iliofemoral system to protect it for later kissing iliac stents. A right EIA remote endarterectomy would be performed, and then the right aorto-common iliac segment would be balloon dilated to 8mm.

The operation went as planned. The external iliac plaque was removed in a single piece from the EIA origin.

Arteriography showed the right EIA to be free of intimal disease, and dilators and ultimately the 22F sheath went in easily.

The TEVAR also went uneventully -the left subclavian which had a prior common carotid to subclavian bypass, was covered and the aneurysm and flap were excluded from the left CCA to the celiac axis.

The most difficult part of the operation was removing the sheath, as is usually the case with a tight iliac, but the friction point was largely at the common iliac and not the external iliac. No artery could be seen extruding with the sheath at the groin while steady tension was applied to the sheath under fluoro. The aortic bifurcation was repaired with kissing iliac stent. The patient recovered well and her chest pain resolved.

I have done this for EVAR, including reopening occluded external iliac arteries, and even for a 26F access for TAVR, avoiding the need for placement of a conduit in selected patients.

Addendum: in followup, I had the chance to check up on the repair -the EIA remained large and patent.

Tags aortoiliac occlusive disease, conduit, endoRE, EVAR, iliac remote endarterectomy, remote endarterectomy, TAVR, TEVAR

PAD techniques

The EIA is more like SFA than CIA with regard to stent patency

Post author By Docpark
Post date 29 Nov 2014
No Comments on The EIA is more like SFA than CIA with regard to stent patency

From my case files, this was a case which I performed in 2010 and published in a prior blog.

CCx: Patient is a 56 year old man with complaints of pain in right leg with walking short distances and discomfort in the foot at night.

HPI: The patient has had cramps in his right calf with walking about a block for over a year, but over the past three months, he has developed pain with walking less than half a block which is incapacitating. He has developed pain at night which wakes him and he has taken to sleeping with his right foot dangling off the edge of the bed. This has resulted in some swelling of that leg which makes it doubly uncomfortable to wear shoes. He works as a manager at a local big box store and walks constantly. He used to smoke but quit last week. He feels this has worsened the pain.

Past Medical History: Hypertension, dyslipidemia, acid reflux

Past Surgical History: Ruptured appendix at 22

Medications: Zantac, Hydrochlorothiazide, Lipitor, Aspirin

Allergies: Penicillin (rash in 1972)

Social History: Employed, 30 pack year smoking history, quit last week

Examination: T 98 BP 142/88 HR 88 RR 12 Ht 68inch Weight 192lbs

HEENT: PERL, EOMI

Chest: Bilaterally CTA

Cor: RR

ABd: Soft, scar right lower quadrant

Ext: Cool right foot with dependent rubor, elevation pallor. Warm left foot

Neuro: Motor and sensory examination normal

Skin: Loss of hair over toes of right foot, and distal right leg pretibium

Pulses: No palpable pulses right leg. Left leg femoral, popliteal, and dorsalis pedis artery pulses are easily palpable

Labs: WBC 9.8 Hb 13.2 HCT: 40 PLT 332 Cr 0.8

Testing: Segmental pressures R/L: Brachial 144/138 High Thigh 88/150 Low Thigh 77/140 Calf 72/132 Ankle 71/140 Metatarsal 68/122

Pulse volume recordings notable for moderately diminished signals right high thigh cuff.

CTA: Moderate atherosclerosis of infrarenal abdominal aorta and its bifurcation with severe plaque of the right common iliac artery and occlusion of the external iliac artery. There was reconstitution of the common femoral artery on the right via collaterals. The left common iliac artery was affected by a moderate (50-75%) stenosis due to low density plaque.

Impression: PVD with rest pain of right leg due to severe aortoiliac occlusive disease and occlusion of right external iliac artery.

Plan: After discussing treatment options, we decided to try a right external iliac artery remote endarterectomy with angioplasty and stenting of his common iliac disease. This was chosen over aorto-bifemoral bypass because he had limited time off from work and work did require that he lift more than 20 pounds.

Operation:

Remote endarterectomy of right external iliac artery with aortography, bilateral common iliac artery angioplasty and stenting.

This operation was done via a single right groin exposure and percutaneous access of the left groin. The common femoral artery had severe posterior plaque which was the starting point of the endarterectomy. Up and over access of the right external iliac artery was achieved and a wire was passed across the occluded external iliac artery and into the right femoral system. With clamping of the common femoral artery, the wire was brought out and controlled with a Fogarty clamp -this allowed for excellent stabilization and control and possible emergent balloon occlusion in the case of a perforation.

A Vollmer ring dissector was sent over wire and plaque up the external iliac artery under fluoroscopy and dissection was stopped at the iliac bifurcation which was heavily plaqued. A Moll Ring cutting device (LeMaitre) was used to transect the plaque which was removed.

The right and left common iliac arteries were stented with self expanding nitinol covered stents and post-dilated. I chose this as I have had occlusions occur in the setting of diffuse TASC C disease with low density plaque -I suspect that thrombus propogates across open cells like weeds growing through chicken wire. The stents on the right were extended across the iliac bifurcation.

A completion angiogram is here to the right. The common femoral artery was repaired with a patch angioplasty (bovine pericardial patch, LeMaitre).

The groin was closed and the patient recovered and was discharged in a few days with excellent palpable pulses on the right and improved pulses on the left. He was without symptoms of claudication or rest pain in the right leg.

Discussion:

Remote endarterectomy allows for removal of plaque via a single groin incision, obviating the need for an abdominal exposure required in an aorto-bifemoral bypass. This minimally invasive technique is associated with a low complication rate and earlier return to full work status because the abdominal incision is avoided.

Smeets et al [reference] reviewed with 7 year experience with 48 patients and had a technical success rate of 88%. One patient died due to a myocardial infarction within 30 days of the operation. The complication rate was low. 6 patients required coversion (retroperitoneal flank exposure) for additional arteriotomy (3 patients) and bypass (3 patients). The primary and assisted patencies shown to the right were acceptable with a secondary patency of 94% at 3 years.

These cases require more surveillance than an aortobifemoral bypass. Intimal hyperplasia does occur in random loci in the SFA remote endarterectomy and this should apply to the external iliac artery. I chose the title because the external iliac artery biologically behaves like the superficial femoral artery in relation to endovascular patencies and not like the common iliac artery or aorta -probably because it shares a common embryology with the SFA, not the CIA. It is a troublesome artery that is often overlooked by vascular surgeons when femorofemoral bypass is performed for occlusive disease -the supplying external iliac artery though patent is usually diseased and has a small lumen. With a fem-fem bypass, both legs are supplied often through an artery with the caliber of a child’s drink straw. I have seen the donor leg become symptomatic through what is termed steal, but in fact reflects the hemodynamic inadequacies of a diseased external iliac artery.

I feel that 5mm is the minimal lumen caliber for an external iliac artery, and a 4mm lumen in an adult will clearly show a hemodynamic effect particularly after exercise or application of vasodilators in the endo suite. Stenting an occluded external iliac artery though technically feasible even in this case is not a durable solution in my experience. This operation allowed the patient to return to work without an extended convalescence.

I think removing the plaque offers advantages over stenting to the inguinal ligament. The common iliac stents have superior potency to external iliac artery stents and moving the stent point to the CIA and not stenting the EIA in my experience has better long term potency.

Reference

Smeets L, et al. J Vasc Surg 2003;38:1297-1304.

Tags endoRE, external iliac artery remote endarterectomy, remote endarterectomy

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