Elective stenting of symptomatic basilar artery stenosis.

Background And Purpose: Percutaneous angioplasty of the intracranial arteries still carries the risk of dissection, with acute closure and embolization. Stenting has been shown to improve the safety and durability of angioplasty in every circulatory bed in which it has been applied. However, stenting of the intracranial arteries has been limited by the availability of stents that can be reliably deployed intracranially.

Methods: Twelve patients underwent elective stenting of the basilar artery after episodes of vertebrobasilar ischemia. In all patients, either medical therapy had failed or the patient had a contraindication for long-term anticoagulation. Information from independent neurological examinations, quantitative angiography, and clinical follow-up was collected. Differences between pretreatment and posttreatment degree of stenoses were subjected to 1-way ANOVA for repeated measures.

Results: There were 10 men and 2 women, all white, aged 40 to 82 years (mean age, 62.6 years). Stent placement was successful in all patients, leading to statistically significant changes in the degree of stenosis, from 71. 4% (range, 53% to 90%) to 10.3% (range, 0% to 36%) (P<0.0001). There were no deaths, stent thromboses, perforations, ruptures, or myocardial infarctions. Clinical follow-up was available for 0.5 to 16 months (mean, 5.9 months). One patient had nonspecific symptoms, and another had a transient ischemic attack. All other patients remained asymptomatic.

Conclusions: Elective stenting of the basilar artery is feasible, with minimal risk to the patient. Its impact on long-term stroke prevention and its durability are unknown and will require further study.