Successful conservative treatment of an undeployed embolized intracoronary stent with dual antiplatelet and warfarin therapy

Intracoronary undeployed stent embolization occurring during percutaneous coronary intervention is an infrequent complication. Published data indicate that without stent retrieval, the outcome is unfavourable. The present report describes a case in which failure to retrieve an undeployed embolized stent from the mid right coronary artery was managed conservatively with acetylsalicylic acid, clopidogrel and warfarin without any major adverse cardiac events during hospitalization or up to 12 months follow-up. This approach may be an alternative treatment of undeployed embolized intracoronary stent when retrieval or deployment is unsuccessful.