Percutaneous angioplasty and stenting of left subclavian artery lesions for the treatment of patients with concomitant vertebral and coronary subclavian steal syndrome.

Objective: To evaluate the efficacy of subclavian stenosis percutaneous transfemoral angioplasty (PTA)-treatment in patients with intermittent or complete subclavian steal syndrome (SSS), and coronary-subclavian steal syndrome (C-SSS) after left internal mammary artery-interventricular anterior artery (LIMA-IVA) by pass graft.

Methods: We studied 42 patients with coronary subclavian steal syndrome subdivided in two groups; the first group consisted of 15 patients who presented an intermittent vertebral-subclavian steal, while the second group consisted of 27 patients with a complete vertebral-subclavian steal. All patients were treated with angioplasty and stent application and were followed up for a period of 5 years by echocolordoppler examination to evaluate any subclavian restenosis.

Results: Subclavian restenosis was significantly increased in patients with a complete subclavian steal syndrome. The restenosis rate was 6.67% in the first group and 40.75% in the second group, These patients had 9.1 fold-increase risk (CI confidence interval 0.95-86.48) in restenosis.

Conclusions: Patients with a complete subclavian and coronary steal syndrome present a higher risk of subclavian restenosis.