title: [Stent-assisted angioplasty and long-term results in atherosclerotic vertebral artery ostial stenosis].
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To evaluate the safety, feasibility and long-term results of stent-assisted angioplasty in atherosclerotic ostial stenosis of vertebral artery (VA).
  
  
  METHODS
  Forty one patients (48 lesions) with symptomatic cerebral ischemic events or stroke attributed to VA atherosclerotic ostial stenosis > or = 50% (NASCET method) found in digital subtraction angiography (DSA) were approached for consent to participate in the study. During the procedure, three cases used protection devices and three used drug-eluting stents.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Thirty seven of the patients were male and 4 female. Mean age was 63.4 years (range 36 - 80). Technical success was achieved in 97.9 % of the lesions. One suffered from a stroke that occurred within 30-days postprocedural. 37 patients were followed up for 22.4 months. The clinical follow-up outcomes showed that there were no lesion-related strokes and deaths, three appeared to have return of neurological symptoms (TIA). Among the 21 patients (26 lesions) who had angiography follow-up, re-stenosis (> or = 50%) was revealed in 9 patients (9 lesions) (34.6%). However, seven of these 9 patients remained asymptomatic.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Stent-assisted angioplasty for atherosclerotic ostial stenosis of VA is safe and feasible. It can prevent the lesion-related stroke, death and TIA recurrence. However, further studies are needed to clarify how to reduce the relatively high re-stenosis rate.
authors.affiliation: Department of Emergency Interventional Radiology, Beijing Tiantan Hospital, Capital University of Medical Sciences, Beijing 100050, China.
authors.forename: Bin
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: DU
authors.forename: Ke-hui
authors.initials: KH
authors.lastname: Dong
authors.forename: Xiao-tong
authors.initials: XT
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.forename: Ning
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Ma
authors.forename: Min
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Jin
authors.forename: Wei-jian
authors.initials: WJ
authors.lastname: Jiang
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D017130:Angioplasty; D005240:Feasibility Studies; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015607:Stents; D014715:Vertebrobasilar Insufficiency / Q000628:therapy*