An adolescent patient with coarctation of aorta treated with self-expandable nitinol stent

Transcatheter treatment of aortic coarctation, with balloon angioplasty or stent implantation, is now an acceptable alternative to surgical repair. However these procedures may result in complications, such as vascular wall injury and re-stenosis of the lesion. A nitinol self-expandable stent, when deployed at the coarctation site, produces low constant radial force, which may result in a gradual widening of the stenotic lesion leaving less tissue injury ('stretching rather than tearing'). For an adolescent with a native aortic coarctation, a self-expandable stent of 20 mm diameter was inserted at the discrete stenotic lesion of 5 mm diameter without previous balloon dilatation procedure. No further balloon dilatation was done immediately after the stent insertion. With the self-expandable stent only, the stenosis of the lesion was partially relieved immediately after the stent deployment. Over several months after the stent insertion, gradual further widening of the stent waist to an acceptable dimension was observed.