Journal of neurointerventional surgery
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Acute ischemic stroke and silent cerebral infarctions following pipeline embolization device (PED) treatment of intracranial aneurysms have been estimated to occur in 3-6% and in 50.9-90% of patients respectively. The PED with Shield technology (PED-Shield) incorporates a surface phosphorylcholine polymer to reduce the thrombogenicity of the implant. We sought to determine the incidence of diffusion weighted image (DWI) documented cerebral ischemia after PED-Shield treatment of unruptured intracranial aneurysms. ⋯ We demonstrated a reduced rate of silent cerebral infarcts following PED-Shield treatment of intracranial aneurysms than previously reported with other endovascular treatment modalities and with the previous device generations. Further research is necessary to evaluate our results and to identify methods to reduce the incidence of postprocedural cerebral ischemic events.