Our Experience in Carotid Endarterectomy

Introduction: Carotid endarterectomy (CEA) operations are more frequent in our practice last years, mostly for asymptomatic patients.In this article we present our experience in this field.Ojectives: Primary endpoints were death and stroke within 30 days of the procedure for asymptomatic patients.Secondary endpoints were acute myocardial infarction wthin 30 days of th procedure and peripheral nerve injury in all patients.Patients and Methods: This is retrospective review for our experience.Data of 219 consecutive CEA, 177 in asymptomatic patients, operated on from January 2004-February 2009 by our equip are collected, All the patients were diagnosed with Duplex scanner and confirmed with multy-slice CT scanner angiography.Endarterectomy was performed either with loco-regional or general anesthesia with selective use of shunt.Combined anti-aggregation with Clopidogrel and Aspirin was the rule at discharge.Patients were controlled for new neurological and cardiac events 30 days after the operation.Results: One asymptomatic patient had major stroke and died.In this group stroke and mortality rate is 1,69%.No peri-operative new acute myocardial infarction happened in any patient.Perpheral nerve lesions happened in 2,7% of all procedures.Conclusions: CEA is a safe treatment for asymptomatic internal carotid stenoses in the hands of an experienced vascular surgeon.Our results for asymptomatic carotid stenoses are according to those recommanded by international guidelines.