A Series of Unfortunate Events 

Dr. Erwin MULIA

Sarawak Heart Centre, Malaysia

 

Background:
65 year old Chinese lady with hypertension, diabetes mellitus and dyslipidemia and was noted to have 3VD and PCI to LCx (1 DES) was performed in 2011 (Movie 1, Movie 2, Movie 3, Movie 4). LAD lesion was not intervened because of the non-viable myocardium at LAD territory.  She was doing well until 2015, when she presented with NSTEMI and coronary restudy +/- PCI was arranged, which showed similar LAD and RCA lesions as in 2011 with patent stent in LCx.  The plan was for CABG and was pending in June 2016.

However, in March 2016, she was suffering from patella fracture requiring urgent orthopedic procedure.  The initial plan for CABG was changed to early PCI. And at the same time, she developed upper GI bleeding and endoscopy confirmed of multiple gastric ulcers and PCI was delayed. After completing treatment for the GUs, coronary angiogram on May 2016 showed spontaneous dissection of RCA (Movie 5, Movie 6). The PCI was postponed for 2 months.

Procedure:
PCI was finally arranged on Jul 2016. RCA dissection was not healed.  PCI to RCA was performed using Ikari L 3.5/6 Fr GC and Floppy GW. Predilation using 2.5×15 mm SC balloon. Stenting from dRCA up to pRCA using 3 overlapping DES (3.0×48 mm, 3.5×38 mm, 4.0×18 mm) were performed (Figure 1, Figure 2, Figure 3). During postdilation in between overlapping segment at mid-distal RCA, Ellis type 3 coronary perforation occurred (Movie 7).

Patient ran into cardiac arrest soon and immediate resuscitation and pericardiocentesis were done. Prolonged balloon occlusion, covered stent implantation, heparin reversal, and high dose of inotropes were given and pericardiocentesis removed 1000 mL of blood (Movie 8, Movie 9).

Though all efforts were done, we couldn’t save the patient.

Learning points:
Different severity of perforation (Figure 4) was managed differently (Figure 5). In this case of Grade 3 perforation, we had try our best to use all available methods (Figure 6) but still not able to save patient’s life.

Invasive imaging modality may give better understanding of dissected coronary artery lesion and treating the other significant lesion before treating long dissected lesion may be a better strategy.