The Seattle Times: Nation & World: Use of stents to prevent strokes discouraged: "Use of stents to prevent strokes discouraged
By Thomas H. Maugh II and Denise Gellene
Los Angeles Times
The increasingly common practice of preventing strokes by using wire-mesh stents to prop open neck arteries is much riskier than the traditional method of surgically removing plaque and should be curtailed, according to two large European studies.
Patients receiving the stents were nearly 2 ½ times as likely to have a stroke or die, French researchers reported today in the New England Journal of Medicine. The results were so clear, the researchers said, that they terminated the study prematurely and stopped using the stents."