Predictive factors for in-stent restenosis after balloon-mounted stent placement for symptomatic intracranial atherosclerosis.

OBJECTIVES We sought to evaluate whether clinical, lesion-related and procedural factors may predict in-stent restenosis (ISR) after intracranial stenting. METHODS Sixty-one Chinese patients with 65 lesions treated with single bare metal balloon-mounted stent for symptomatic intracranial arterial stenosis underwent conventional angiographic follow-up after procedures between March 2004 and July 2009. Clinical, lesion-related and procedural factors were analysed for any predictive power for the ISR using univariate and multivariate analysis. ISR was defined as >50% stenosis within or at the edge of the stent or absolute luminal loss >20%. RESULTS ISR was found in 18 patients (18/61, 29.5%) with 20 lesions (20/65, 30.8%) at a median follow-up of 7 months (range, 5-30 months). Univariate analysis revealed that diabetes, Mori classification, lesion length and stent diameter were associated with ISR. In addition, diabetes (hazard ratio (HR), 2.661; 95% confidence interval (CI), 1.044-6.787; P=0.040) and lesion length (HR, 1.206; 95% CI, 1.023-1.421; P=0.026) were detected as two independent predictors for ISR by stepwise multivariate Cox regression analysis. CONCLUSIONS ISR after intracranial stenting with bare metal balloon-mounted stents in our series seems to be more frequent than those reported by the majority of the published case series. Diabetes and lesion length are associated with increased risk of ISR.