Background: Major, noncoronary complications are rarely encountered following transradial coronary procedures.
Methods and results: Among 1600 prospectively studied patients with complete follow-up, 7 patients experienced major complications following coronary forearm procedures corresponding to an incidence of 0.44%. We found inadvertent symptomatic intramyocardial contrast medium injection, 2 cases with compartment syndrome of which 1 was managed surgically, exertional hand ischemia due to radial artery occlusion, a large ulnar artery pseudoaneurysm, an ulnar arteriovenous fistula, and 1 critical hand ischemia due to late occlusion of the distal brachial artery.
Conclusions: Although infrequent, surveillance for major complications should be encouraged after forearm coronary procedures.
Keywords: complications; coronary procedures; hand ischemia; radial artery; ulnar artery.
© The Author(s) 2015.