Catheter-based procedures are more commonly associated with the heart. Many people have either had heart catheterizations or angioplasties or know people who have undergone those procedures. The procedures for stroke are not as commonly seen, and there are a couple of reasons for that. First of all, the heart muscle is more tolerant of these types of procedures and less likely to be injured by the procedure itself. The brain is very sensitive to lack of blood flow and it's prone to bleeding when blood flow is restored. And that's a big part of the evaluation that a patient will go through when they are being considered for treatment. Because we need to make sure that their risk of bleeding from the treatment is low enough that it makes the treatment worthwhile to proceed with. The other reason is that more is known about the heart than the brain. And the cardiology field has been doing these kinds of procedures longer than those in the neurology field because there is more known about the heart and how these procedures can help the heart. Additionally heart disease is more common than disease that produces stroke. So those are a couple of reasons that it's not as commonly seen in the brain, however recently at the international stroke conference, which is a worldwide conference held annually regarding stroke care, there were several clinical trials whose results were reported that show that people who get endovascular-based treatment or catheter-based treatment for stroke do fare better, have better outcomes. And so I think what's going to happen, going forward is that we're going to see more of these procedures being done. Because now we have good evidence to show that it's the right thing to do for patients.
