Venous thoracic outlet syndrome secondary to arterial stent implantation: A case report

Venous thoracic outlet syndrome (VTOS) secondary to subclavian arterial stent implantation is extremely rare. Here, we firstly report this disease and the endovascular intervention using covered-stents.

An 80-year-old man who had received an acceptable stent implantation for the treatment of a right subclavian arteriovenous malformation (AVM), presented with a gradually increasing swelling and pain in his right upper extremity.

The patient was diagnosed with right VTOS and recurrent subclavian AVM following ultrasonography and computed tomographic angiography.

We positioned a covered-stent in the subclavian artery to block the feeding arteries and successfully embolized the remaining branches with coils. Next, we performed successful dilation 3 times, followed by the positioning of another covered-stent in the right subclavian vein.

The patient was free of all symptoms and the imaging procedures confirmed an acceptable thrombosis of the AVM with patent stents in the right subclavian artery and vein during the 6-month follow-up.

Venous stent implantation is an alternative to treat VTOS caused by subclavian arterial stents and it is essential to pay more attention to the incidence of VTOS following arterial stent implantation in the subclavian artery.