Carotid artery stenting possible for high-risk patients with lesions

Posted on Wednesday, February 8th, 2012

Patients who are not candidates for traditional surgery for severe carotid artery disease lesions could be treated with carotid artery stenting, according to results of a small feasibility study by UT Physicians cardiologists.

The results were presented Nov. 9 by lead investigator Colin Barker, M.D., UT Physicians cardiologist, at the Cardiovascular Research Foundation’s annual scientific symposium, Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics (TCT) 2011 in San Francisco.

“These were high-risk patients who had no alternatives because they were not candidates for surgery,” says Dr. Barker, attending physician at Memorial Hermann Heart & Vascular Institute (HVI). “We performed interventional stenting on these 10 patients with no complications or deaths.”

The patients, who had symptoms of stroke related to their carotid artery disease, had been evaluated by James Grotta, M.D., UT Physicians neurologist. Dr. Grotta, co-director of the Mischer Neuroscience Institute, then approached the UTHealth cardiology interventional team to see if stenting was a possibility.

“Dr. Grotta wanted to offer them something,” Dr. Barker says. “These were frail and elderly patients with 99 percent blockage and co-morbidities including kidney, heart, and lung disease. It’s been something that no one wanted to try, but we were willing to break that barrier.”

The procedure, done through the groin artery, takes approximately one hour and is done while the patients are awake with mild sedation. One-year follow-up with six of the patients revealed no obstructive disease in the artery.

Other UTHealth/Memorial Hermann HVI presenters at the conference were Richard Smalling, M.D., Ph.D., UT Physicians cardiologist; and Ali Denktas, M.D., UT Physicians cardiologist.

— Deborah Mann Lake, Office of Advancement, Media Relations

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