Intracranial Stent Placement for Symptomatic Intracranial Stenosis as Part of a Clinical Trial Versus Outside a Clinical Trial

Background and Purpose—A high rate of postprocedure complications in the Stenting versus Aggressive Medical Therapy for Intracranial Arterial Stenosis (SAMMPRIS) trial has raised concerns whether such results are representative of intracranial stent placement in actual routine practice.

Methods—Using the Nationwide Inpatient Sample from 2008 to 2010, patients with cerebral ischemic events treated with intracranial stent as part of a clinical trial or outside the trial were identified. The composite end point (postoperative stroke, cardiac complications, and mortality) was reported. read more