Long saphenous femoral artery (SFA) chronic total occlusions (CTOs) are considered the "Achilles heel" of the lower extremity percutaneous interventions. Antegrade, retrograde, or transcollateral approaches, intraluminal or subintimal techniques with re-entry and specialized CTO devices using microdissection, vibrational energy, and laser have all been tried for the management of such challenging lesions with various success rates. Ocelot is the first CTO crossing device using real-time OCT technology. Its crossing catheter utilizes spiral wedges to corkscrew the CTO cap, while real-time OCT offers direct visualization to facilitate intravascular true-lumen orientation. The recently presented results of the CONNECT-II study demonstrated crossing success of 97% and freedom from major adverse events of 98%. We present one of the most challenging SFA CTOs with ambiguous proximal cap in the ostium of the SFA, heavy calcification and involving almost the entire length of the SFA. The Ocelot catheter assisted to the successful true-lumen recanalization of that complex lesion.
Keywords: chronic total occlusion; peripheral arterial disease; peripheral intervention; peripheral transluminal angioplasty.
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