A stent was implanted in the brain of a 69-year-old man, who had suffered multiple strokes, at a hospital in Howrah last week.

Doctors said implanting a stent in the brain was “rare”.

The man is stable and is likely to be discharged on Wednesday.

When the elderly man was admitted to Narayana Superspeciality Hospital on March 16, he had difficulties in seeing and speaking. “After a scan we found that he had suffered multiple strokes,” said Kaushik Sundar, stroke and interventional neurologist at the hospital. He started slipping into a coma on March 18.

A brain angiogram showed that the artery supplying blood to the brain stem was blocked. The doctors decided to perform a mechanical thrombectomy, a process in which the clot is sucked by a vacuum syringe.

Even after the procedure, they found dirt inside the blood vessel. “That is when we decided to implant a stent in the blood vessel to ensure unhindered flow of blood thro-ugh the vessel,” said Sundar.