Balloon expandable Stent utility for early Secondary Prevention of new Cerebral Ischemic events Caused by Intracranial Atherosclerotic Stenosis. Technical Nuances

Objective: Recurrent cerebral ischemic events are estimated to appear in between 12-15% of symptomatic intracranial atherosclerotic disease (ICAD), regardless of the use of leading pharmacological therapies. Balloon expandable stent (balloon mounted coronary stent) could represent a feasible alternative in this disease’s treatment. This study pretends to report the balloon-expandable placement experience in our center. Materials and Methods: A unicentric retrospective study dated between September 2009 and March 2018 was conducted. Patients previously diagnosed with ICAD and symptomatic stenosis treated with balloon-expandable stent were included. Clinical features, morbidity, mortality, short and long-term evolution, and pre-and post-treatment angiographic features were analyzed, as well as a mean 8 years-period follow-up. Data are presented as means, frequencies, and percentages for categorical variables, and ranks for continuous variables. Statistical analysis was carried by IBM SPSS Statistics Base V22.0 (IBM Corporation, Mexico). A Wilcoxon Signed-rank test statistical analysis was performed. Statistical significance was considered when a p-value lesser than 0.05 was measured for every result. Results: A total of 6 patients with 7 affected vessels were treated, with an average age of 62.7 years. Affected and treated vessels were located in the Internal Carotid Artery (ICA) segment in 42.9%, Vertebral Artery (VA) V4 segment in 14.3%, Middle Cerebral Artery (MCA) M1 segment in 28.5%, and Posterior Cerebral Artery (PCA) P1 segment in 14.3%. The incidence of peri-operatory thrombotic events was 0%. Intracranial hemorrhage presented in 0% of cases. Recurrent ischemic or thrombotic events were not reported in a 97-months mean follow-up. 71.4% of patients scored ≤2 in the modified Rankin Score (mRS) pre-treatment, in a 90 day and 12-month follow-up. 100% presented a favorable evolution with mRS ≤2. Restenosis cases were not reported in radiologic control and retreatment was not needed in a 97-month mean follow-up. Conclusions: This study suggests that balloon-expandable stent therapy with some technical endovascular variants for its navigation and placement could be a safe and effective alternative in the treatment of ICAD as a means of cerebral ischemic event early secondary prevention. We propose to consider not to limit endovascular treatment exclusively to those symptomatic ICAD patients refractory to medical-exclusive treatment, as a means to reduce the risk of presenting a new neurological deficit. Further expanded clinical trials are needed to confirm these findings and the advantage of this kind of stents against other kinds reported in the literature.