Background: To evaluate the efficacy of the subintimal angioplasty combined with provisional stenting for femoropopliteal arterial total occlusions in comparison with subintimal balloon angioplasty. Methods: Of 89 patients with 103 lesions treated with subintimal angioplasty at superficial femoral artery total occlusion from 2003 to 2006 , we compared the baseline characteristics and outcomes between 70 patients with 79 limbs (Group 1) treated by subintimal angioplasty with primary stenting (age 65 짹 9.5 years, occlusion length 24.48 cm) and the 19 patient with 24 limbs (Group 2) treated by conventional balloon subintimal angioplasty (age 68 짹 6.5 years, occlusion, length 22.58 cm) from our registry database. Results: All baseline clinical and angiographic characteristics showed no difference between two groups. Mean follow-up duration was 15 짹 9 month. Subintimal angioplasty was successful in 93 of 103 limbs (90.3 %). In both groups, there were no major complications requiring surgery. There was no difference of pressure gradient (6.53 짹 4.4 vs. 5.84 짹 3.5, p = 0.540) and ABI index (0.85 짹 0.14 vs. 0.86 짹 0.17) after procedure between two groups. Primary patency of patients between primary stent group and balloon angioplasty group were 67.7 % and 63.2 % for at 6 months (p = 0.711), and 56.3 % and 57.1 % at 12 months (p = 0.953), respectively. Conclusion: Subintimal angioplasty was feasible with a high technical success rate and provided acceptable short and mid-term results. But, provisional stenting had no additional benefits after successful subintimal balloon angioplasty.