Objective: Surgical correction of congenital aortic coarctation can lead to a number of important problems including late pseudoaneurysm formation. Redo surgery has a significant risk. Endovascular stent graft repair is increasingly used but there are limited data regarding this indication. We describe the experience of two UK congenital referral centres.
Design: Retrospective analysis of patients treated with endovascular aortic stent grafting for late pseudoaneurysms.
Setting: Two UK congenital heart centres, Bristol Heart Institute and Leeds General Infirmary.
Patients: 17 patients were treated 2006-2012. This represents all patients treated with this technique.
Main outcome measures: Procedural and postprocedure success and complications.
Results: The average time from index repair to endovascular repair of pseudoaneurysm was 24.6 years. The majority (70.6%) had patch aortoplasty as the original surgical procedure and 41.2% were not under follow-up or discharged. Stent grafting procedural success rate was 100%. Median hospital stay postprocedure was 3 days. There was no procedural mortality or immediate complication. There were four minor early and three minor late complications. Imaging follow-up was available for an average of 31.6 months (range 6-65 months). All patients have demonstrated positive remodelling of the pseudoaneurysm with no incidence of continued expansion or stent graft failure up to 5 years following implant.
Conclusions: Endovascular stent graft treatment of pseudoaneurysms show promising results in a population who have a high risk of surgical re-intervention. Complication rates appear to be low and recovery is quick. Longer-term data remain essential to scrutinise stent graft performance in this situation.
Keywords: Congenital Heart Disease.