Safety of outpatient arterial stenting

To assess the safety of performing iliac arterial stenting as an outpatient procedure.

Retrospective analysis of safety including all patients referred for elective iliac arterial stenting over a 1-year period. Sources of data for the analysis included pre- and post-stenting vascular surgical consultation records, hospital case notes, diagnostic and interventional angiography reports, computerized laboratory data, nursing records from our angiography holding area, and the results of routine post-stenting telephone follow-up.

There were 29 outpatient iliac stenting procedures in 28 patients (19 men and 9 women, age range 41.0 to 79.8 years, mean age 66.1 years). Of these 29 procedures, 17 involved unilateral iliac stenting, and 12 involved bilateral iliac stenting. Adjunctive renal artery angioplasty was performed in 1 patient and internal iliac angioplasty and stenting were performed in 2 patients. A total of 51 stents were deployed through 42 femoral punctures via introducer sheaths ranging in size from 6 to 8 French. Percutaneous hemostatic closing devices were used in 6 punctures. Two patients required overnight inpatient observation for moderate-size hematomas; these had no clinical sequelae. All others were discharged safely 5 to 6 hours after sheath removal. No clinically significant sequelae were identified in any patient.

Arterial stenting can be performed safely on an outpatient basis.