Right Ventricle Foreign Body: A Case of a Migrating Iliac Stent Entrapped in the Tricuspid Valve

Abstract

We report a 27-year-old man with a history of atrial fibrillation, pericarditis, and May-Thurner syndrome who underwent a venoplasty with two self-expandable stents in the left common iliac vein. One year later, he presented with tricuspid valve insufficiency and a dilated right atrium. His echocardiogram showed a foreign body in the right ventricle enmeshed in the tricuspid valve. This was identified as a migrating iliac stent confirmed by the absence of one of the peripheral stents on venogram. He failed a percutaneous approach to retrieve the stent and underwent subsequent surgical extraction with open sternotomy. There was significant damage to the tricuspid valve necessitating valvuloplasty and annuloplasty. We believe the migrated stent may have been relatively small for this patients vascular anatomy and this serious complication could have been avoided by proper stent size selection. Fortunately, our patient is now asymptomatic with no functional limitations.




J Med Cases. 2014;5(12):636-638
doi: https://doi.org/10.14740/jmc1991w