When to Choose Thrombectomy for Large-Vessel Occlusion Due to Carotid Artery Dissection

Patients with carotid artery dissection were excluded from the initial randomized trials that demonstrated the efficacy of thrombectomy for anterior-circulation large-vessel occlusion (LVO) stroke. This omission was due partly to the additional complexity of managing the tandem extracranial and intracranial occlusions often present in carotid dissection patients and partly to concern about procedural complications related to arterial wall weakness, a feature of conditions that can cause dissection. Now, one of the largest international observational studies of this patient population has been conducted, involving 1023 consecutive patients with LVO stroke due to carotid artery dissection from the nationwide stroke registries of Austria, Germ…