[The management of carotid reestenosis--an experience with the conventional surgery]

The authors report a series of 26 consecutive patients, 20 men and 6 women, age range 47-80 years, average age of 66 years, who underwent conventional surgery for the treatment of carotid reestenosis. The surgical management consisted in the resection of a segment of the common carotid-internal carotid arteries and interposition of a prosthetic graft, followed by ligation of the external carotid, in 3 patients; in the remainder 23 cases a venous bypass graft was interposed from the common carotid to the internal carotid artery, above the lesion, with preservation of the external carotid artery flow and ligation of the internal carotid, just below the anastomosis. There was no operative mortality and the significant morbility consisted in a cervical hematoma in one patient, transient disphonia in two cases and transient disphagia in one patient. During the mean follow up time of 43 months, one patient developed a significant reestenosis of the venous graft and another patient developed an aneurysm of the venous graft, both conditions requiring surgical repair. Based on the early and late results of this experience, the authors elect the open conventional surgery as the method of choice for the treatment of carotid reestenosis.