title: Does stent overlap influence the patency rate of aortoiliac kissing stents?
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To determine if the position of kissing stents in the distal aorta has any influence on the patency rate.
  
  
  METHODS
  A retrospective review was conducted of 41 patients (22 men; median age 60.8 years, range 44-86) electively treated for atherosclerotic aortoiliac occlusive disease with angioplasty and kissing stents between January 1997 and January 2005. Two patient groups were defined by reviewing postinterventional anteroposterior radiograms: (1) patients in whom the proximal end of the kissing stents overlapped more than half of their angiographic width within the aorta ("crossing" group) and (2) patients in whom the proximal ends of the stents overlapped half of their width or less ("non-crossing" group).
  
  
  RESULTS
  At 2 years, the primary and assisted primary patency rates by life-table analysis were 60.8% and 69.4%, respectively, for the 35 patients included in the life-table analysis. There was no significant difference between the 16-patient "crossing" group and the 19-patient "non-crossing" group in terms of the baseline demographic, morphological, and procedural variables. The primary and assisted primary patency rates at 2 years for the "non-crossing" group were significantly higher (94.1% and 100%, respectively) compared to 33.2% and 45.3%, respectively, for the "crossing" group (p=0.01).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Failure of kissing stents in the aortic bifurcation may be significantly increased by the overlap of the free proximal stent ends in the distal aorta.
authors.affiliation: Department of Vascular Surgery, Medical University Innsbruck, Austria. andreas.greiner@uibk.ac.at
authors.forename: Andreas
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Greiner
authors.forename: Hannes
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Mühlthaler
authors.forename: Beate
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Neuhauser
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Waldenberger
authors.forename: Andreas
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Dessl
authors.forename: Michael F H
authors.initials: MF
authors.lastname: Schocke
authors.forename: Werner
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Jaschke
authors.forename: Gustav
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Fraedrich
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001018:Aortic Diseases / Q000601:surgery*; D001157:Arterial Occlusive Diseases / Q000601:surgery*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007083:Iliac Artery; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric; D015607:Stents; D016896:Treatment Outcome; D014654:Vascular Patency