Pseudo-occlusion of the external iliac artery after stenting.

A patient with an unknown thoracic aortic coarctation underwent angiography for calf claudication. Percutaneous angioplasty and stenting of an external iliac artery (EIA) stenosis produced flow reversal in the EIA, mimicking occlusion on the angiogram. This aberrant situation resulted from a haemodynamic disbalance between the iliac flow and a dominant compensatory collateral flow through the inferior mammary-epigastric channel produced by the coarctation.