When to Use Antegrade Access in Infrainguinal Revascularization
Antegrade access is the default for infrainguinal revascularization — until proven otherwise. Two real exceptions, two false exceptions, and the one adjustment that changes everything.
Antegrade access is the default for infrainguinal revascularization — until proven otherwise. Two real exceptions, two false exceptions, and the one adjustment that changes everything.
Once the decision is made to go subintimal, the technique becomes a matter of discipline: keeping the loop small, advancing the catheter behind the wire, and re-entering the true lumen right at the distal cap - the most demanding step of the entire procedure.
Once the Target Arterial Path is chosen, the technical question becomes how to cross the CTO. In long femoropopliteal occlusions the relationship between intraluminal and subintimal recanalization is more nuanced than the textbook sequence suggests — three scenarios worth distinguishing.
Before discussing how to cross a long or multilevel CTO, we need a more fundamental question: which vessel do we recanalize? The strategic framework of the 2019 Global Vascular Guidelines — Target Arterial Path, GLASS, and the role of the angiosome — defines everything that follows.
Heavy calcification is not just a technical obstacle — it changes the rules of the game entirely. In this issue: why the subintimal approach often fails in the highly calcified pattern, and why staying endoluminal is both the harder and the smarter choice