drug - coated balloon has been developed as an alternative to drug - eluting stents ( des ) .
results of several preclinical and clinical studies indicate that short - term exposure of injured arteries to paclitaxel eluted from regular percutaneous transluminal angioplasty and ptca balloons may be sufficient to reduce late lumen loss and restenosis rates during a critical period of time after angioplasty of diseased coronary and peripheral arteries.- we present a case of particularly proliferative instent restenosis treated with a new type of drug eluting balloon .
a 68-year - old man with severe silent ischemia was admitted to our center for elective coronary angiography and percutaneous coronary intervention . the patient had bypass grafting of left anterior descending ( lad , with mammary artery ) , first obtuse marginal branch and right coronary artery ( rca ) 6 years before .
three years after the surgical procedure , he developed unstable angina and angiography showed occlusion in both vein grafts .
he underwent percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty with des in the obtuse marginal branch and left main and with a bare metal stents vision 3.5  18 mm in the proximal and 3.0  23 mm ( abbot vascular , abbott park , illinois , usa ) in the distal dominant rca ( figure 1a and 1b ) .
after one year , he had recurrent angina and a complete occlusion of previous bare - metal stents of rca was noted .
the patient underwent repeated coronary angioplasty with des and extensive reconstruction of the rca was accomplished using two promus ( boston scientific , usa ) 3.5  28 mm and a 3.5  15 mm followed by another 3.0  12 mm from the proximal to the distal portion of rca with excellent angiographic results ( figure 1c ) after high pressure over- dilation with 4.0  12 mm sprinter nc balloon ( medtronic , minneapolis , minnesota , usa ) .
nevertheless after 8 mo the patient developed severe stress myocardial ischemia in the inferior territory associated with mild effort angina .
the coronary artery angiography revealed diffuse proliferative and subocclusive in - stent restenosis of previous des ( figure 1d ) .
the patient was considered at risk for repeated bypass surgery , so a percutaneous ballaoon angioplasty with a medicated balloon was scheduled . because the in - stent restenosis was too long to treat with a coated balloon , that usually can be used only one time for each inflation , an infusion balloon such as the genie ( acrostak ag , stegackerstrasse 14 , winterthur , switzerland ) was selected .
the device is composed of a balloon with two heads at each distal extremity which allow for stopping the blood flow for at least 80 s ( ideally 120 s ) and a central chamber with micro - holes which is filled up with liquid paclitaxel ( 130 - 170 mol ) ( figure 1e ) , and can be implanted at a low pressure ( 2 atm ) .
thus , the rca was wired and dilated with multiple inflation of a standard 3.0  30 mm sprinter balloon and then , four dilatation along the entire rca was accomplished with a 3.5  28 mm genie catheter .
the immediate final ( figure 1f ) as well as 6 mo follow - up coronary angiographic results ( figure 1 g ) were excellent .
the patient is free from symptoms and silent ischemia at 9 mo clinical and instrumental follow - up .
the presented case suggests that drug - infusion balloon can offer an effective therapeutic option in selected patients with very extensive in - stent restenosis after des implantation .
although the number of published trials and patients treated with drug eluting - balloon is still limited , and its effectiveness in treating in - stent restenosis , and in particular in the treatment of restenosis after des has been only suggested but not yet proved , there is some promise for drug - coated stent for such purpose .
most drug - coated balloon can not be used for more than one inflation and thus resulted useless in long segment treatment .
the genie catheter has been used in in - stent restenosis after bare - metal stent implantation . however , to the best of our knowledge , this is the first report about its use in very long proliferative and occlusive in - stent - restenosis after des treatment .
 drug - coated balloon has been developed as an alternative to drug - eluting stents for in - stent restenosis but the performance of drug infusion balloon in such setting has not been previously described . 
 we present a case of particularly aggressive in - stent restenosis after drug eluting stent implantation treated with a new kind of drug infusion balloon developed in order to overcome the impossibility to inflate regular drug - coated balloon for several dilatation . 