Percutaneous transluminal excimer laser angioplasty in total peripheral artery occlusion in man

Laser angioplasty and laser-assisted angioplasty have become a clinical reality. Producing sharply defined borders of the ablated area with minimal adjacent thermal damage, excimer lasers offer several proven and some potential advantages over conventional systems. To evaluate the feasibility of excimer laser angioplasty, we have treated one patient using 308-nm radiation via a bare fiber in direct contact with the total occlusion of a right femoral artery. The lesion was successfully recanalized, thus allowing easy passage of the balloon catheter and subsequent dilatation. This percutaneous laser recanalization of an occluded peripheral artery is one of the first to be done in man using excimer laser radiation, thus demonstrating that the technique is feasible and the system is potentially useful.