Research Shows Aspiration is Valid Therapy in Stroke Thrombectomy

New research by Adnan Siddiqui, MD, PhD, vice chair and professor of neurosurgery, and Elad I. Levy, MD, the L. Nelson Hopkins III, MD, Professor and Chair of the Department of Neurosurgery, shows that in stroke patients with large vessel occlusion, the removal of the clot occurs as efficiently after aspiration-based clot removal alone as it does after aspiration-based clot removal performed with a stent retriever. “Our findings were certainly not surprising for us, but they may surprise some in the larger community where not using a stent retriever has been considered heresy,” says Siddiqui, senior author of the study. “We now have level-one evidence showing that both of these strategies are equally effective.” Levy is a co-author.