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MURRAY -- One of the largest stroke prevention trials ever conducted involved Intermountain Medical Center. The study compared two different procedures for some patients who had strokes, others who were at risk for one. The findings, doctors say, are changing medicine and saving lives.
Stroke remains the third leading cause of death in the United States, but Utah patients are now benefitting from the results of a national trial that involved Utah researchers.
The nine-year study used more than 2,500. Doctors in 117 medical centers, including Intermountain Medical Center, researched the procedures.
"This is a carotid artery that's coming up into the neck out of the chest, and it divides into two branches -- one of which supplies the blood to the face, the tongue and so forth, and the other continues up into the skull to supply the brain," explained Dr. J. Lee Burke, cardiologist at Intermountain Medical Center.
Plaque builds up at the divide, blood clots form and travel to the brain causing strokes.
In the traditional surgical procedure, the doctor makes an incision in the artery, cleans out the plaque and sews it back together. In the less invasive, newer stent procedure, the surgeon first measures the artery size then threads a stent and expanding device to widen the blocked area.
"In both surgery and the new stent, the complication rates were the lowest ever reported in a trial," Burke said.
The new stent procedure also includes a butterfly net to catch plaque particles that can cause future strokes. Surgery and stents used to be only for high-risk patients; now average and low-risk patients are receiving them.
"Patients who aren't thought to have a high risk for surgery because they have the bad lungs, or some other sort of thing like that, or that they're just so frail they can't recover: these are ‘you and me' patients," Burke said.
This study also had the benefit of leading to fewer days in the hospital for the patients.
CLICK HERE for information on stroke prevention and the warning signs of a stroke.
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