Direct carotid artery puncture for acute ischemic stroke: Local experience and systematic review

BackgroundTo establish surgical access during endovascular treatment of ischemic stroke, femoral artery puncture is most commonly performed followed by a small number of radial artery access procedures. However, there are few reports of carotid artery puncture.MethodsWe report the case of an 87-year-old woman who was admitted to hospital with hemiplegia of the left limb and loss of consciousness for 40 min, accompanied by urinary incontinence. After complicated transfemoral and transradial attempts, the patient underwent emergency direct carotid artery puncture (DCAP) for the treatment of acute ischemic stroke. We reviewed the literature on this topic over a 7-year period (September 2014 to April 2022), including 202 patients with acute ischemic stroke who underwent emergency DCAP and endovascular surgery.ResultsThe average age of these patients was 80.5 years. The left DCAP accounted for 52.5% (106/202) of the cases. Local anesthesia was utilized in 33.9% (64/189) of the cases. Angio-Seal was utilized for closure in 53.7% (79/147) of the patients. About half (105/199) of the patients recovered or improved their limb function after DCAP. Postoperative complications were mainly neck hematoma and one of these patients died due to a fatal neck hematoma.ConclusionWe describe the detailed procedure of the rare case of an emergency DCAP performed at our institution. DCAP provides an alternative treatment method in cases where thrombus removal access cannot be established through traditional methods.