A strange case involving partial fracture of percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty wire and its successful retrieval

angina of a critical lesion of the proximal left anterior descending artery. After negotiating with spring-type wire (balance middle-weight wire), a loop was formed. Due to excessive manipulation to unloop the wire, it partially fractured at the shaft and coil junction. As the proximal section was retrieved, a thin elongated filament of spring coil also came out from the Y-connector while the remainder of the coil was still trapped in the lesion. Two balance middle-weight wires were then placed distally, and the proximal ends of both wires were inserted together in a torque device, which were firmly screwed and rotated 45 to 55 times in a circular pattern. During this rotational motion, the broken segment along with thin filament was tangled within these rescue wires and all three wires were removed together using tangling technique. Following this, angioplasty was performed successfully. After reviewing the literature using PubMed, to the authors’ knowledge, this is the first incident of its kind to be reported.