Iatrogenic Femoral Arteriovenous Fistulas: Endovascular Treatment with Coil Embolization in Two Patients

mon access for diagnostic and interventional procedures. Potential complications of arterial catheterization are hematomas, arteriovenous fistulas (AVF), pseudoaneurysms, arterial occlusions, and peripheral embolization. The reported incidence of all vascular complications ranged from 1% to 9%, and the incidence of AVF varied from 0.006% to 0.86% (1, 2). An iatrogenic AVF is the result of a communication between artery and vein, following the percutaneous puncture of diagnostic or interventional procedures. Manual compression of AVFs by ultrasound has been advocated as an alternative treatment, but may fail in 30% (3). Several alternative treatments for AVFs have been reported in previous studies (4-6). Percutaneous transcatheter embolization with a coil is a minimally invasive alternative to surgery for the lesion, when external manual compression has been unsuccessful. Here we report our experience with two iatrogenic femoral AVFs, which were successfully treated with coil embolization.