Real-World Data on Prevalence and Prognosis of Symptomatic Intracranial Stenosis

In the last 15 years, clinical trials have been conducted to evaluate different treatment options (anticoagulation, stenting) for symptomatic intracranial atherosclerotic disease (ICAD). These trials have shown that intensive medical therapy alone is preferred to intracranial stenting and that antiplatelet therapy is preferred to anticoagulants. Trials tend to recruit a select population of patients; community-based studies of symptomatic ICAD are needed. These authors conducted an analysis of symptomatic ICAD in the population-based Oxford Vascular Study, using multiple methods to identify patients with transient ischemic attack (TIA) or minor stroke. Intracranial vessels were imaged with magnetic resonance angiography (MRA; preferred), co…