Stents in the treatment of renal artery stenosis: long-term follow-up.

Purpose:To evaluate the role of percutaneous stenting in the treatment of renal arterial lesions after failure of balloon angioplasty.Methods:Two hundred ten patients (139 males; mean age 67.7 ± 9.9 years, range 27 to 87) had 259 balloon-expandable stents (165 Palmaz and 94 Renal Bridge stents) implanted in 244 renal artery stenoses (171 ostial and 73 nonostial lesions). The patients were suffering from intractable hypertension (n = 210) and/or renal dysfunction (n = 48). The majority of the lesions (n = 234) were atheromatous in origin. Stents were implanted for suboptimal balloon dilation (n = 182, 75%), restenotic lesions (n = 27, 11%), or dissection (n = 9, 4%); 26 (11%) ostial lesions were stented primarily. Mean lesion length was 11.9 ± 4.4 mm (range 5 to 30) and mean percent stenosis was 81.9% ± 8.25% (range 70 to 100).Results:Immediate technical success was 99% (241 of 244). Three (1.2%) major complications included one intraprocedural stent thrombosis, one arterial perforation manifesting as a pe...