Angioplasty for femoral artery occlusion: comparison with surgery.

Forty-six patients with superficial femoral artery occlusions (range, 1-20 cm) had percutaneous transluminal angioplasty. The primary success rate was 76% with a late closure in six patients. Life table analysis showed a 1 year patency of 56.8%, maintained at 2 years among the group in whom the successful was 4 cm, while in those in whom the lesion was not crossed, it was 9 cm. Over the same period, 133 femoropopliteal bypass grafts were performed. The patients were comparable as to runoff, incidence of diabetes, and distal ischemia. The 1 year patency was 60.2% and the 2 year patency, 42.1%, largely because of the poor performance of grafts other than saphenous vein. Angioplasty seems to be the treatment of choice for short segment occlusions, and should be used in longer occlusions if saphenous vein is not going to be used.