Stingray balloon used in slender percutaneous coronary intervention for chronic total occlusion.

Slender chronic total occlusion (CTO) percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) using 5 Fr radial Ikari catheter is possible in simple CTO cases. We report a case where we initially thought the LAD CTO was short and easy, but we found that the CTO had a considerable amount of calcium and also some tortuosity, making simple wire crossing impossible. We used a Stingray balloon to perform re-entry by tracking the balloon over an Ultimate Bros 3 gram wire using an extension wire. We successfully punctured into true lumen and completed stenting through a slender 5 Fr system. This case demonstrates the beauty of combining the advances in CTO PCI from the East and the West together and also demonstrates the possibility of using the Stingray system in a 5 Fr guiding catheter.