What are the complications? Well they are slowly going down as operators gain more experience, but most significantly perforations now are occurring at a less than 1% rate. Serious complications including major bleeding, sepsis, perforation, across the board are somewhere in that 2.5-3% range all together. One caveat to keep in mind, your patients who have already received radiation therapy, bleeding, perforations, other complications occur much more frequently in this sub-population of patients.

What about migration? When the stents were first produced, migration remained a significant problem but the companies have come up with little tricks. Flaring out the ends, putting barbed wires or little hooks on each end, hoping to keep the stents in place. This has been partially successful in reducing the rates of stent migration.