Delayed-onset left main coronary artery obstruction: More than 24 hours after balloon-expandable transcatheter aortic valve replacement

Abstract

Coronary obstruction during or after transcatheter aortic valve replacement is a rare and catastrophic sequela that occurs most frequently just after valve implantation. Even rarer is the delayed clinical presentation, in some few patients, of coronary obstruction on the day after self-expandable valve implantation. Here we describe a case of balloon-expandable (not self-expandable) transcatheter aortic valve replacement, followed by partial obstruction of the left main coronary artery on the day after that procedure in a 93-year-old man, despite normal left ventricular contraction just after valve implantation. Visual evaluation of the echocardiogram for left ventricular wall motion was not sufficient, by itself, to achieve early diagnosis of the obstruction. We performed emergency percutaneous coronary intervention. Ninety days after the procedure, the patient was in New York Heart Association functional class I.