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CASE REPORT article
Front. Cardiovasc. Med.
Sec. Coronary Artery Disease
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fcvm.2025.1565014
This article is part of the Research Topic Case Reports in Coronary Artery Disease: 2024 View all 12 articles
Multiple coronary artery perforation as a fatal complication during the management of an undeflatable stent balloon: A case report
Provisionally accepted- Pusan National University Yangsan Hospital, Yangsan, Republic of Korea
An undeflatable stent balloon following its inflation during percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) is a rare and unpredictable complication that can lead to serious consequences. Currently, there is no standardized protocol for managing this issue.An 83-year-old man presented with chest pain. Coronary angiography showed a chronic total occlusion (CTO)-like lesion in the proximal left anterior descending coronary artery (LAD). Following stent deployment, the balloon failed to deflate and remained inflated within the LAD. Despite multiple retrieval attempts, the issue remained unresolved. As an alternative to surgical removal, we inflated the balloon beyond its rated burst pressure within the coronary artery. The balloon eventually ruptured and was successfully retrieved; However, this resulted in multiple severe coronary perforations, which were effectively sealed using covered stents.Balloon deflation failure is an exceptionally rare, unpredictable, and critical complication of PCI. While various troubleshooting strategies exist, inflating an undeflatable balloon beyond its burst pressure should be considered only as a last resort, with thorough preparation for potential complications.
Keywords: Percutaneous Coronary Intervention, Coronary Occlusion, Coronary device entrapment, complications, perforation
Received: 22 Jan 2025; Accepted: 04 Mar 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Kim, Lee, Kim and Chun. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Kook-Jin Chun, Pusan National University Yangsan Hospital, Yangsan, Republic of Korea
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