Inflation time in stent deployment: How long is enough?

Coronary stents are commonly deployed using high pressure. However, the duration time of balloon inflation during deployment is still to be determined. Vallurupalli and coworkers, in this issue of CCI, show that the stent system takes an average of 33 sec to "accommodate" its pressure during in vitro deployment. In patients, the mean stent inflation time to achieve pressure stability was 104 seconds, ranging from 30 to 380 sec. These results challenge a rapid inflation/deflation approach for stent deployment. It is suggested that the duration of the inflation might be individualized, in a case-by-case approach. However, the findings must be interpreted with caution, as they cannot be directly extrapolated to more diverse clinical, angiographic, and interventional scenarios.