Emergent microsurgical intervention for acute stroke after mechanical thrombectomy failure: a prospective study.

Background Despite all the gains that have been achieved with endovascular mechanical thrombectomy revascularization and intravenous thrombolysis logistics since 2015, there is still a subgroup of patients with salvageable brain tissue for whom persistent emergent large vessel occlusion portends a catastrophic outcome. Objective To test the safety and efficacy of emergent microsurgical intervention in patients with acute ischemic stroke and symptomatic middle cerebral artery occlusion after failure of mechanical thrombectomy. Methods A prospective two-center cohort study was conducted. Patients with acute ischemic stroke and middle cerebral artery occlusion for whom recanalization failed at center 1 were randomly allocated to the microsurgical intervention group (MSIG) or control group 1 (CG1). All similar patients at center 2 were included in the control group 2 (CG2) with no surgical intervention. Microsurgical embolectomy and/or extracranial-intracranial bypass was performed in all MSIG patients at center 1. Results A total of 47 patients were enrolled in the study: 22 at center 1 (12 allocated to the MSIG and 10 to the CG1) and 25 patients at center 2 (CG2). MSIG group patients showed a better clinical outcome on day 90 after the stroke, where a modified Rankin Scale score of 0-2 was reached in 7 (58.3%) of 12 patients compared with 1/10 (10.0%) patients in the CG1 and 3/12 (12.0%) in the CG2. Conclusions This study demonstrated the potential for existing microsurgical techniques to provide good outcomes in 58% of microsurgically treated patients as a third-tier option. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]