“Hugging balloons” through a single 8‐french guide: Salvage angioplasty with lytic therapy in the infarct vessel of a 40‐year‐old man

Abstract

We report the a case of hugging balloons through an 8-French guiding catheter to stabilize an ectatic right coronary artery following failed thrombolytic therapy in the setting of acute myocardial infarction. Angiographic follow-up at 1 wk and 6 mo revealed persistent vessel patency.

“Hugging balloon” dilatation: Modification and limitation of the technique in oversized vessels

“…The first application of "hugging balloon" dilatation was reported by Teirstein et al [1] with two guiding catheters via two separate femoral punctures through which two dilatation catheters were introduced to dilate an oversize graft. This technique has been modified by others with the use of a single 9F guiding catheter and a combination of one "over-the-wire" and one "ona-wire"catheter and more recently two "balloon-on-awire" catheters through a Standard 8F guide [2][3][4]. The use of a single balloon catheter designed for peripheral arteries to dilate a vein graft has also been described, but this technique requires the need of a stiffer guiding wire (0.035/1) and the withdrawal of the guiding catheter before dilatation [7].…”

“…With the advent of lower profile catheter and larger 9F guiding catheter, however, it is possible to introduce simultaneously two dilatation catheters, a conventional "over the wire" and a balloon "on a wire," in a single 9F guiding catheter [2,3]. More recently, the use of two balloon "on-a-wire" systems in a Standard 8F guiding catheter has been proposed [4].…”