Intracranial Stenting in Non-acute Symptomatic Ischemic Stroke: an Open-label, Randomised Controlled Trial

In symptomatic ischemic stroke due to intracranial large severe stenosis or occlusive artery, the choice for treatment has remained controversial after results of the Stenting versus Aggressive Medical Therapy for Intracranial Arterial Stenosis (SAMMPRIS) trial because it demonstrated that the efficacy of medical treatment was superior to intracranial stenting in the low risk of periprocedural stroke or death. However, this conclusion has influenced the role of intracranial stenting in the ischemic stroke treatment and recovery time for a long time because of the unproper patient selection of this trial such as no evidence of medical failure, intracranial stenting earlier than 7 days after the stroke and intracranial stenting in patients with transient ischemic attacks only. Recently, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) mandated study about intracranial stenting, WEAVE trial, reported not only 97.4% patients with no complication at 72 hours, but also a relatively low 8.5% recurrent stroke and death rate during 1 year in the WOVEN study. In case of the symptomatic stenosis greater than 70%, the probability of recurrent stroke and transient ischemic attack in the territory of the symptomatic stenotic artery in 1 year was 23% and 14%, respectively, despite treatment with antithrombotic therapy and standard management of vascular risk. Given a lot of patients with symptomatic ischemic stroke who have some adjustable indications for intracranial stenting deployment in the world and a paucity of evidence from randomized trials, the purpose of this trial was to compare this treatment versus medical one in the intracranial large severe stenosis or occlusive artery.