Major longitudinal deformation of a new-generation drug-eluting stent during withdrawal into the guide catheter.

Longitudinal stent deformation is a recently described complication of percutaneous coronary intervention and is the result of modifications to the stent design that have reduced the number of connectors, reducing longitudinal stent strength. All previous reported cases involved deformation of successfully deployed stents. We report an unusual case of significant longitudinal deformation of a non-deployed Taxus Element stent during withdrawal into the guide catheter. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first such case ever reported.