I have no experience with the use of covered stents for this purpose, so this is an opinion unadulterated by any knowledge of the facts whatsoever. My guess is that covered stents will also have the same formation of stenosing hyperplasia, at least at the ends of the stent, and that they are not likely to be of value. This is just a guess, however, and when covered stents are readily available we will all find out if this is the case. Covered stents may well be of greater value since these veins are of larger diameter. It has been my observation that we interventional radiologists often find it easier to overpower the sensorium than apply modern regional anesthetic techniques such as axillary nerve blocks.
Some patients have a great deal of pain with venous angioplasty.
Since most of the venous outflow stenoses lie below the axilla, you can inject lidocaine around the site that is about to be dilated. This helps significantly to reduce the pain. I don't know anyone who has used regional blocks before proceeding to PTA, but this would be an alternative. I have performed over 75 Axillary blocks on patients requiring PTA for hemodialysis access complications. The results have been uniformly excellent.