Coronary stent fracture in a saphenous vein graft to right coronary artery--successful treatment by the novel use of the Jomed coronary stent graft: case report and review of the literature.

Coronary stents ultimately owe their success to the mechanical scaffolding effect that they provide. The mechanical properties of these metallic stents were designed not only to provide radial strength so as to prevent vessel recoil, but also to be able to resist the mechanical stress of vessel movement over millions of cardiac cycles. We present a case whereby the latter mechanical stresses may have contributed to the fracture of a stent implanted in the saphenous vein graft to the right coronary artery. We demonstrated that the point at which the stent fracture occurred coincided with an area of maximal graft movement. Our patient presented with acute myocardial infarction due to graft occlusion 3 months after stent implantation. We re-intervened by deploying a Jomed coronary stent graft, consisting of 2 layers of stent, to cover the stent fracture, thereby providing optimal support to this area of high mechanical stress, resulting in a good long-term clinical outcome. The novel use of a Jomed coronary stent graft for this indication has not been previously described. Review of the literature indicates that factors that may predispose to stent fracture include location in the right coronary vein graft, long stents, overlapping stents and stent over-expansion.