NIH Clinical Alert: Angioplasty + Stenting

The National Institute of Health has just issued a clinical alert stating that The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) has stopped a clinical trial examining the effects of intracranial angioplasty combined with stenting and aggressive therapy in the treatment of symptomatic intracranial arterial stenosis.  The study's Data Safety Monitoring Board found that 14% of the patients treated with angioplasty and stenting had a stroke or died within 30 days of beginning the trial, as compared to 5.8% experiencing a stroke or dying in the group treated with aggressive medical therapy alone.  


NIH's clinical alerts "are provided to expedite the release of findings from the NIH-funded clinical trials where such release could significantly affect morbidity and mortality."  This is the first clinical alert issued since July, 2009.  


The clinical alerts page also gives instructions on subscribing to the alerts via RSS.  NIH makes available multiple newsfeeds on various topics, including AIDS info, MedLine, and MedLine in Spanish, as well as both podcasts and webcasts.