Number of Clot Retrieval Attempts and Infarct Growth in Acute Stroke

Endovascular thrombectomy (EVT) is an established treatment for select patients with acute ischemic stroke treatable within 24 hours of stroke onset. Some vascular occlusions are “easy” to open up with the thrombectomy device, and recanalization can be achieved with one pass of the device. Other lesions are more resistant and require multiple passes to open up the vessel. These authors retrospectively assessed potential harms of multiple clot retrieval attempts, using data from two prospective registries. All patients had to have pre- and postprocedure MRI with diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) sequences. The variables of interest were emboli to new territories and infarct growth. The researchers correlated the number of clot retrieval attem…