Increasing Efficacy of Thrombectomy by Using Digital Subtraction Angiography to Confirm Stent Retriever Clot Integration

Physicians performing thrombectomy for acute stroke have had increasing success as thrombectomy-specific devices have continued to evolve. As the devices evolve, so too must the techniques. The current generation of stent retriever thrombectomy devices requires five minutes of dwell time, regardless of the particularities of the case. We have noticed the presence of flow through the stent immediately prior to removal portends a lower chance of successful thrombus retrieval than when no flow is seen, regardless of dwell time. We hypothesize that interventionalists can use the presence or absence of flow to predict adequacy of seating time and decrease the number of deployments per case. This could significantly decrease time to recanalization by avoiding time-consuming, unsuccessful pulls. This is a technical report of a few cases of stent retriever thrombectomy. We propose using post-deployment digital subtraction angiography to confirm thrombus-device integration and increase the chance of thrombus removal.