BACKGROUND: Cerebrovascular intervention is a medical strategy to diagnose and treat cerebrovascular disease by intravascular intervention techniques. With the continual developments of computer technology, imageology, and angiography, cerebrovascular intervention techniques have developed rapidly.OBJECTIVE: To summarize and to evaluate vascular imaging diagnostic techniques, vascular intra-arterial thrombolysis, vascular intra-arterial angioplasty, and vascular embolization in clinical applications.RETRIEVAL STRATEGY: An online search was conducted in PubMed for English language reports, published from January 2002 to January 2008, containing the key words: intervention therapy, cerebral vascular disease, endovascular intervention and angioplasty. A total of 57 publications were identified. Inclusion criteria: articles about cerebrovascular intervention for cerebrovascular disease; articles published either in high impact factor joals or in recent years. Exclusion criteria: duplicated articles.LITERATURE EVALUATION: 30 articles were identified concing intravascular intervention techniques and arterial angioplasty. Of those, 7 articles were reviews and 23 were clinical or basic studies.DATA SYNTHESIS: Carotid artery and basilar artery stenosis were important etiological factors for ischemic cerebrovascular disease. The mechanism of stenosis induction included atherosclerotic plaque exfoliation and stenosis could cause hemodynamic changes to induce cerebral infarction. Therefore, the treatment of carotid artery and basilar artery stenosis played a key role in preventing ischemic cerebral infarction. The intational organization for subarachnoid hemorrhage aneurysm has conclusively shown that both relative and absolute risk factors of intravascular embolotherapy were reduced compared to those of surgical occlusion, demonstrating the important role of vascular embolization for the treatment of intracranial aneurysm. Endovascular stents were placed into the intracavities of affected vessels to recover normal blood flow in the intravascular cavity. Percutaneous transluminal angioplasty and endovascular stent placement were frequently combined in clinical applications.CONCLUSION: Cerebrovascular intervention aims to diagnose and treat cerebrovascular disease by intravascular intervention techniques, which are a new set of techniques and which are widely applied for the treatment of cerebrovascular disease. Compared with traditional drug and surgical therapies, intravascular intervention techniques have the advantages of a simple and less traumatic method of operation, exact localization of the intervention, fewer complications, and positive effects; therefore, these techniques have considerable promise in clinical application.