title: Role of balloon-expandable stents in intracranial atherosclerotic disease in a series of 182 patients.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To demonstrate the safety and efficacy of balloon-expandable intracranial stents in patients with intracranial atherosclerotic lesions (>70% stenosis) who were symptomatic despite being on optimum medical therapy.
  
  
  METHODS
  Between April 2004 and May 2012, 182 patients underwent intracranial stenting in our institution. All patients had symptoms despite being on optimum medical therapy. Clinical follow-up was done at 1, 3, 6, and 12 months. Angiographic follow-up was done at 1 year in 121 patients.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Technical success was achieved in 97.44% of the cases. The incidence of all strokes at 1 month after procedure was 11 (5.64%), of which 2 (1.02%) were major, both related to stent thrombosis not responding to tirofiban, and 9 (4.61%) were minor. Periprocedural minor stroke was seen in 9 patients. There were 2 deaths in our study (mortality=1.09%).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Treatment of intracranial atherosclerotic disease with balloon-expandable intracranial stents is a safe and effective method with acceptable adverse events, especially in patients who failed medical therapy and were symptomatic despite being on optimum medical therapy.
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurointervention, King Edward Memorial Hospital, Pune, India.
authors.forename: Anand
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Alurkar
authors.forename: Lakshmi Sudha Prasanna
authors.initials: LS
authors.lastname: Karanam
authors.forename: Sagar
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Oak
authors.forename: Suresh
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Nayak
authors.forename: Sandeep
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Sorte
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000800:Angioplasty, Balloon / Q000009:adverse effects / Q000379:methods* / Q000401:mortality; D003251:Constriction, Pathologic / Q000401:mortality / Q000628:therapy*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D002537:Intracranial Arteriosclerosis / Q000401:mortality / Q000628:therapy*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011446:Prospective Studies; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D015607:Stents / Q000009:adverse effects / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D020521:Stroke / Q000209:etiology / Q000401:mortality; D016896:Treatment Outcome; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: intracranial stenosis; stenting; stroke