Repair of coronary artery perforation following angioplasty using TachoSil® patches

Abstract

Coronary perforation is a rare complication of percutaneous interventional procedures, occurring in 0.2-3% of procedures, which may require emergency coronary bypass surgery. We describe here an alternative method to deal with such complication, which proved effective in a patient with active bleeding from the left anterior descending (LAD) coronary artery. By temporary pressing on beating heart patches of TachoSil®, a sponge impregnated with human fibrinogen and thrombin, on the bleeding site, complete and stable hemostasis was achieved. © 2010 Published by European Association for Cardio-Thoracic Surgery. All rights reserved.