Intracranial stenting for severe symptomatic stenosis: self-expandable versus balloon-expandable stents

Intracranial atherosclerosis against optimal medical treatment requires reperfusion therapy to improve the clinical outcome. We compared outcomes between self-expandable stent (SES) and/or balloon-expandable stent (BES) and present the potential advantages of using each stent. During the same time frame before and after Wingspan introduction to our institute, 115 consecutive patients underwent intracranial stenting for symptomatic severe intracranial stenosis against optimal medical treatment using BES alone (n = 71) vs. BES or SES (n = 44). We analyzed 15 factors including outcome related to an adverse event (AE), modified Rankin Scale (mRS) and restenosis at six months and retrospectively compared the potential advantages of using each stent. BES or SES groups had a significantly lower AE rate (2.3%) than the BES only group (14%) (P = 0.049) revealing mRS of ≤ 2 in all patients at six months compared to 93% of the patients in the BES group. Analysis of BES or SES subgroups revealed that BES was associated with less residual stenosis after stenting than SES (18 vs. 32%; P < 0.001). Both SES and BES can improve the clinical outcome of intracranial stenting especially with a selective choice of SES or BES. Further study is needed to analyse the difference in long-term outcome and the restenosis rate between SES and BES.