Casana R, et al. - Researchers here aimed at assessing the safety (technical success) and efficacy (clinical success) of the CGuard stent system–a new nitinol stent covered by a closed-cell polyethylene terephthalate mesh designed to prevent embolic events. This single centre study revealed that for endovascular treatment of symptomatic and asymptomatic subjects, the CGuard could be a safe and effective device, independent of aortic arch anatomy.

Methods

• This study included consecutive patients who underwent carotid artery stenting (CAS) with CGuard from June 2015.
• All procedures were performed by the same surgeon.
• Technical and clinical success were assessed as the primary endpoints.
• For this study, clinical success was considered to be absence of death, major or minor stroke.
• As a secondary endpoint, researchers evaluated the incidence of new ischaemic brain lesions in a subgroup of patients by diffusion weighted magnetic resonance imaging (DW-MRI).

Results

• During the study period, CAS procedures were performed on 82 patients (73.8 ± 8.5 years, 75% male, 19% symptomatic).
• Researchers reported immediate technical success of 100%, with the stenosis diameter reduced from 81.4 ± 4.9% to 11.0 ± 3.5%.
• Observations revealed peri-operative technical and clinical success in 100% of symptomatic patients.
• Because of the occurrence of one acute stent thrombosis 4 hours post-CAS followed by a minor stroke, peri-operative technical and clinical success in 98.5% of asymptomatic patients were evident.
• No new events were registered in the post-operative period (30 days).
• In the peri-operative period, the most recent 21 patients (24%) underwent DW-MRI; new ischaemic brain lesions were recorded in 23.8% of patients and the average lesion volume per patients was 0.039 ± 0.025 cm³.