OBJECTIVETo discuss the experience with special consideration for the occurrence and management of complications after thoracic aortic stent-graft treatment (EVAR).

METHODSRetrospectively review the 33 cases with complications following EVAR from July 2002 to March 2008. There were 21 male patients and 12 female patients with a mean age of 46.3 years and mean postoperative period of 12.3 d. There were 5 cases with left carotid artery covered, 5 cases with proximal or distal endoleak, 4 cases with limbs artery injuries, 3 cases with entire stent in false lumen, 3 cases with retrogression dissections, and 2 cases with Stanford A type dissection. In addition, there were 1 case of acute cerebral infarction during the procedure, 1 case of cerebral haemorrhage 2 d after endovascular repair and 1 case of pseudoaneurysm of the left brachial artery. The procedures for the complications included second stent grafts placement in 13 cases, right-left carotid and left carotid-subclavian bypass in 7 cases, iliac-femoral artery repair or graft implantation in 4 cases, abdominal aortic dissection windowing in 2 cases, one artery thrombectomy and one Beutall's procedure.

RESULTSFollow-up consisted of a CTA, MRI and office visit at 1, 6, 12 months and yearly thereafter. All the endoleak and retrogression dissections disappeared after secondary endovascular procedure. The ischemic complication of limbs, central nervous system and intestinal were cured after artery bypass. One case died of cardiac tamponade due to Stanford A aortic dissection and another case died of cerebral hemorrhage.

CONCLUSIONSThe complication should be corrected as soon as possible and it might get more success to combine the endovascular approach and open surgery. Meanwhile, enhanced follow-up would help to find correlative complications in time.