Abstract:

OBJECTIVE: To explore the material characteristics of cerebral vascular stents, and the correlation between complement reactions and complications after stenting.
METHODS: Using “cerebral vascular stents, biomaterials, biocompatibility, restenosis, complement reaction” as the Chinese key words, “rebrovascular disease, stent, therapy, complement” as the English key words, a computer search was conducted on Pubmed database (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/PubMed) and the VIP database (http://www.cqvip.com/) from January 2000 to December 2008 for articles about the characteristics of cerebral vascular stents and complement reaction after stent implantation; repeated study and Meta analysis articles were excluded. Totally 24 articles mainly focus on the material science characteristics of cerebral vascular stent and the correlation between complement reactions and complications after stenting.
RESULTS: The metallic stents have poor biocompatibility while polymer stents, coated stents and drug stents are present with better biocompatibility. Cerebral vascular stents, as an important means of the treatment of intracranial and extracranial vascular disease, it can reduce ischemic stroke risk in patients with intracranial and extracranial artery stenosis, but the complications after stenting such as restenosis, may seriously impede further development of the technology, immune inflammatory response play an important role in ischemic brain injury mechanisms and the biomaterials also has significant impact on the complement system.
CONCLUSION: Using the appropriate biomedical materials, cerebrovascular stent placement can significantly reduce the mortality rate of cerebrovascular disease. But the complications occur during and after the process of vascular stent placement, should be paid attention and given positive control measures. Development of new biomedical materials, and simultaneous detection of the complement system-related indicators, will increase the success rate of cerebral vascular stent.