[Follow-up during the 1st postoperative year after endovascular exclusion of abdominal aortic aneurysms]

Between January 1995 and December 1996 15 patients, 13 male and 2 female, underwent a transfemoral repair of an infrarenal aortic aneurysm with endovascular stent grafts. In one case the indication was an anastomotic aneurysm after bypass grafting. Stent-systems (MIALHE) were used in 9 cases as a bifurcation graft and in 6 cases as a tube graft. The patients' mean age was 70.2 years. The follow up period ranged from 3 months to one year. The implantation of the stent grafts was primarily successful in all cases. In 6 patients procedure related complications occurred. One postoperative death occurred due to multiple organ failure. In one case a persisting leakage at the proximal end of the stent graft led to a rupture of the aneurysm. Another patient developed gangrene of the colon. Both had to be corrected surgically. There were 3 persisting leakages at the distal end of the stent graft. They were treated with the implantation of covered stents, percutaneously and transfemorally twice and conservatively once. In the follow up, all stent grafts were patent. There were 4 complications in the 6 months follow up: one covered rupture of the common iliac artery at the distal end of the stent graft and one distal leakage at the common iliac artery as well as 2 leakages at the stent graft junction, caused by commencing desintegration were repaired by interventional procedures.