Preservation of hypogastric artery blood flow during endovascular aneurysm repair of an abdominal aortic aneurysm with bilateral common and internal iliac artery involvement: utilization of off-the-shelf stent-graft components.

A 72-year-old male presented with a 7.4-cm abdominal aortic aneurysm with bilateral common and internal iliac involvement. To maintain pelvic perfusion, preservation of the patient's left hypogastric artery (HA) was pursued. Two weeks after right HA embolization, endovascular repair of the patient's aneurysms was performed using a branched endograft approach. A 22-mm main body bifurcated endograft was unsheathed and the proximal covered stent was removed. The contralateral gate was preloaded with a wire and catheter. The device was resheathed and placed in the left common iliac artery. The preloaded wire in the contralateral gate was snared from the right side, establishing through-and-through femoral access. A contralateral femoral sheath was advanced up and over the aortic bifurcation from the right side into the contralateral gate of the bifurcated endograft. The repair was bridged to the left HA using a balloon-expandable stent-graft, followed by standard endovascular abdominal aortic aneurysm repair. Completion angiography demonstrated exclusion of patient's aneurysms, without evidence of endoleak, and maintenance of pelvic blood flow through the left HA. The patient recovered without complication and was discharged home on postoperative day 4. This technique illustrates the technical feasibility of using a preloaded commercially available endograft to preserve HA blood flow and maintain pelvic perfusion during endovascular aortic aneurysm repair.