ABSTRACT
Aorto-iliac intervention is a commonly performed endovascular procedure and yet the data to indicate the prevalence of complications are few. The problem is compounded by a lack of uniformity in the definition of a complication of endovascular intervention. Perhaps the best contemporary data come from the second BIAS II report, which prospectively looked at outcomes in 2152 patients from 46 hospitals in the United Kingdom.1 That report detailed an overall periprocedural complication rate of 5.7%. Complications were more likely to occur in patients with critical limb ischemia (CLI) compared to claudication (18% vs 2.5%), but interestingly there was no significant difference between those patients treated with angioplasty or stents. Such information will be undoubtedly skewed by patient selection. More complex lesions are likely to have been treated by stent placement including their primary use in iliac occlusions rather than simple stenoses. In addition, there was a low rate (0%) of complications in patients treated as a day case, again reflecting good patient selection and an undoubted bias towards claudicants rather than patients with CLI.
