[The status of carotid artery surgery today: technique, indications, results]

Carotid artery endarterectomy (CAE) is a surgical standard procedure today. The indication is the symptomatic patient (Stage II) with transient ischemic attacks (TIA) and stenosis of the internal carotid artery (ACI). Data of several studies have yielded a highly restrictive policy toward operative procedures in asymptomatic patients (Stage I) with carotid bruit or ACI-stenosis. Furthermore there emerged wide consensus, that patients with frank stroke (Stage III) should not be operated upon. As diagnostic procedures highly advanced non invasive procedures came up during the last decade, as well as computerized tomography and digital subtraction angiography. The operative procedure is performed in general anesthesia with controlled hypertension during the clamping period (n = 650). Perioperative results without using a shunt are not different to those with a shunt. During the last 5 year period our results yielded a 1% perioperative central permanent neurological deficit rate (CPNDR) and a 1% operative mortality. During a 51 months median observation period 1.5% presented again with transient ischemic attacks-with TIA; 0.6% developed a stroke and 2.2% deceased by cerebral complications yielding at totally 4.3% long term complication rate. The annual rates are 0.3%, 0.1% respectively 0.5%, totally 0.9%. In conclusion CAE can be offered as a safe surgical stroke preventing procedure in symptomatic TIA patients with ACI stenoses in our institution. Perioperative as well as long term results are yielding a high standard and are clearly better than those without operation.