Artery-opening brain stents designed to reduce high risk of repeat strokes instead significantly increased strokes and deaths, results of a multi-center clinical trial show. The research is reported online Sept. 7, 2011, in The New England Journal of Medicine. In the first month after treatment, patients with the stents experienced more than twice the rate of strokes and deaths compared to patients without them, prompting the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke to halt trial enrollment in April.
