Treatment of Acute Cerebral Artery Occlusion With a Fully Recoverable Intracranial Stent

Abstract

A 42-year-old woman was referred to our institution with sudden onset of ataxia, facial paresis, horizontal gaze palsy, and progressive dysarthria. The patient worsened within a few minutes, with appearance of left hemiparesis. The National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale Score was 13. On computer tomography scan 2 hours after stroke onset, no brain stem lesion or intracranial bleeding was visible. Computed tomographic angiography revealed a mid basilar vessel occlusion, which suggested embolic basilar artery occlusion. A 4-vessel angiogram with a 5F diagnostic catheter confirmed the basilar artery occlusion and depicted more precisely the location of the thrombus (Figure 1A). Figure 1. A, Digital subtraction angiography after vertebral injection demonstrates a mid basilar vessel occlusion. B, The angiogram after placement of the stent from the left P1 segment (white arrow) into the basilar artery showed flow restoration of the basilar artery with a narrowing in the middle part of the vessel due to compression of the thrombus into the arterial wall (black arrows). C, …