New method to increase a backup support of a 6 French guiding coronary catheter.

A 6 Fr guiding catheter is commonly used in the percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI). However, one of the limitations of the 6 Fr guiding catheter is its weak backup support compared to a 7 or an 8 Fr guiding catheter. In this article, we present a new system for PCI called the five-in-six system. Between March 2003 and September 2003, this system was tried on eight chronic total occlusion cases. The advantage of the five-in-six system is that it increases backup support of a 6 Fr guiding catheter. (c) 2004 Wiley-Liss, Inc.