Total occlusions of the femoropopliteal artery: high technical success rate of conventional balloon angioplasty.

Seventy patients 48-93 years of age underwent standard percutaneous transluminal angioplasty (PTA) for femoropopliteal artery occlusions 1-10 cm long. PTA was accomplished through an antegrade puncture of the common femoral artery. The angiographic criterion for technical success was restoration of the vessel lumen with no significant residual stenosis. The authors report technical success in 64 (91%) of their patients, an improvement over a technical success rate of 74% in their previous series of 46 other PTA patients with occlusions 1-20 cm long. In this series, no complications related to PTA necessitated emergency surgical intervention. Refinements in PTA can be attributed to changes in patient selection and medication, improvements in balloon catheters and guide wires, and greater proficiency on the part of angiographers. This update reflects currently achievable results with standard angioplasty techniques, and it is against such results that all new vascular recanalization techniques, including laser-assisted PTA, should be compared.