VALPARAISO – Porter Health System has been selected by The Center for Medicare and Medicaid and Abbott Vascular as a site for CHOICE, a post-market clinical trial that examines the use of carotid stents in high-risk surgical patients.

            “To gain approval as one of the study sites in the United States and Europe was a painstaking process,” said cardiologist Sandeep Sehgal, the primary investigator for CHOICE.

            One of the goals of the study is to gather data about the benefits of performing carotid artery stenting in patients who are at high risk for stroke, are not having symptoms, yet are considered high risk for undergoing carotid endarterectomy.

            “Carotid artery stenosis is a narrowing of the aortic valve of the heart, and it is a significant contributing factor for stroke,” said Sehgal. “We are unable to perform carotid endarterectomies on patients with severe COPD, advanced chronic heart failure or those who have previous radiation or surgery to the head because they cannot tolerate the anesthesia. Inserting a stent to open the narrowed carotid artery does not require general anesthesia.”