Novel microsnare successfully used to remove small debris from the right coronary artery.

Soutenir (Asahi-Intecc, Nagoya, Japan), a novel microsnare, was used to grip and pull a retrograde guidewire through arteries with chronic total occlusions during percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI). Soutenir can pass through a microcatheter with a 0.020″ lumen, and it can easily enter distal lesions in the coronary artery. Here, we introduce a method for retrieving the tip of a broken intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) catheter by using this microsnare. We present the case of a 64-year-old man who was referred to our hospital for narrowing of the proximal right coronary artery (RCA). After IVUS examination, the catheter was removed from the artery with some difficulty, and the catheter tip broke. The broken tip remained in the RCA and was carried along with the blood to the distal part of the RCA. The conventional gooseneck snare and filter device failed to retrieve the broken tip. However, Soutenir easily passed beyond the catheter tip and reached the distal part of the atrioventricular branch. It snared the tip of the catheter, whereby the tip could easily be removed. Thus, without damaging the RCA, we successfully removed the broken catheter tip from the RCA using this microsnare.