A comparison of balloon injury models of endovascular lesions in rat arteries.

Background: Balloon injury (BI) of the rat carotid artery (CCA) is widely used to study intimal hyperplasia (IH) and decrease in lumen diameter (LD), but CCA's small diameter impedes the evaluation of endovascular therapies. Therefore, we validated BI in the aorta (AA) and iliac artery (CIA) to compare it with CCA.

Methods: Rats underwent BI or a sham procedure (control).

Predictors for clinical success at one year following renal artery stent placement.

Purpose: To determine pretreatment variables that may predict 1-year clinical outcome of stent placement for renal artery stenosis.

Methods: In a prospective study, 40 consecutive patients (29 men; mean age 60 +/- 9.1 years) with angiographically proven atherosclerotic renal artery stenosis were treated with stent placement because of drug resistant hypertension (n=14), renal function impairment (n=14), or both (n=12).

Midterm follow-up of balloon-expandable ePTFE endografts in the femoropopliteal segment.

Purpose: To evaluate the midterm clinical outcome of patients treated with a balloon-expandable polytetrafluoroethylene (ePTFE) endograft for long-segment occlusive disease of the femoropopliteal segment.

Methods: Eighty-nine patients (68 men; median age 69 years, range 43-81) with disabling claudication (n=73) or critical ischemia (n=16) were treated with an ePTFE endograft (mean length 29 cm) for 7 stenosis (mean length 9 cm) and 82 occlusions (mean length 19 cm) in the femoropopliteal segment. The follow-up protocol included Doppler ankle-brachial pressure measurement and duplex scanning or angiography of the endograft at 6-month intervals.