BACKGROUND Management of severe central airway obstruction due to advanced cancer is a medical and technical challenge. The impact of airway stenting on the clinical outcome of such patients is unclear. METHOD This single-center, retrospective study evaluated 21 patients who underwent airway stenting for advanced cancer. We examined predictors of the post-stenting mortality, including age, se...

Introduction: The risk of developing coronary artery disease (CAD) for both men and women is increasing in society today. Over the past twenty-five years, the concepts of percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty (PTCA) and stenting have become dominant modalities in the treatment of CAD. In the late 1970’s and early 1980’s, PTCA was seen as the best possible alternative to bypass surgery ...

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) will reduce payment for coronary stenting on January 1, 2013. That is the bad news. More on that later. Is there any good news? Yes. First, CMS could have cut payments for coronary stenting 10 or more years ago, but it did not. Second, coronary stenting has been reimbursed for the past 17 years at a rate that was set in 1994. To appreciate th...

AIMS To compare, by meta-analytical techniques, the clinical impact of bare-metal stenting vs. balloon angioplasty for the treatment of lesions in small coronary arteries. METHODS AND RESULTS We included trials with random allocation and prospective comparison of angioplasty vs. stenting, reference vessel diameter<3 mm, and follow-up>or=6 months. Random effect odds ratios (OR) for death, myoc...

PURPOSE To clarify the outcome of flexible ureteroscopy (fURS) for management of renal calculi without preoperative stenting. METHODS A total of 171 patients who received 176 fURS procedures for unilateral renal stones were reviewed. All procedures were divided into two groups depending on whether they received ureteral stenting preoperatively. Baseline characteristics of patients, stone burd...

BACKGROUND Little is known about patterns in the use of carotid revascularization since a 2004 Medicare national coverage decision supporting carotid artery stenting. We examined geographic variation in and predictors of carotid endarterectomy and carotid stenting. METHODS Analysis of claims from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services from January 1, 2003, through December 31, 2006. Pat...

BACKGROUND Coronary stents are widely used in interventional cardiology, but a current quantitative systematic overview comparing routine coronary stenting with standard percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty (PTCA) and restricted stenting (provisional stenting) has not been published. PURPOSE To summarize results from all randomized clinical trials comparing routine coronary stenting...

OBJECTIVES To report a single centre ongoing experience of endovascular treatment for atherosclerotic vertebral artery origin stenosis in a series of symptomatic patients, with follow up imaging to determine the incidence of restenosis. METHODS 14 patients with vertebral artery origin stenosis on catheter angiography were treated. Angioplasty without stenting was undertaken in the first four ...

Airway stenting is required for the palliative treatment of advanced esophageal cancer. This study retrospectively analyzes the outcomes of airway stenting for esophageal cancer at our institution. Data from nine patients who underwent airway stenting were reviewed. All patients had poor respiratory status due to esophagorespiratory fistula and/or respiratory stenosis. We retrospectively assess...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE We hypothesized that permanent stenting may be a rescue treatment for stentriever-failed anterior circulation large artery occlusion. We compared the outcomes among patients with permanent stenting and those without stenting after stentriever failure. METHODS We retrospectively evaluated 208 patients who underwent stentriever thrombectomy for anterior circulation large ...