[Treatment of high grade intracranial stenoses].

Intracranial stenosis is the cause of 10 % of strokes. Besides medicinal treatment, intracranial bypass surgery, percutaneous transluminal angioplasty and stenting are available treatment approaches. According to the 2005 published WASID trial antiplatelets should be preferred to oral anticoagulation in secondary preventive therapy of ischemic stroke; however patients with high grade intracranial stenosis still have a poor prognosis. Intracranial bypass surgery, which was taken into account as a treatment option even in 1985, showed a generally worse outcome in relation to medicinal therapy. Intracranial angioplasty and stenting, representing improvements in endovascular treatment, were proven to be effective and feasible treatment approaches for patients with symptomatic high grade intracranial stenosis. Within the scope of the SAMMPRIS trial published in 2011, which propagated an advantage of aggressive medicinal treatment versus endovascular therapy, a retrospective study was performed at the department of neuroradiology of the Homburg University of Saarland.