Surgical management of the occluded carotid artery

Of 36 patients with symptomatic total occlusion of the common carotid and/or internal carotid arteries, ipsilateral operation was performed in 20. Twenty-eight patients had occlusion of the internal carotid artery, four of the common carotid alone, and four had occlusion of both vessels. Thirteen patients had completed stroke. Noninvasive examination erroneously suggested internal carotid patency in three patients. Of six patients with occluded common carotid arteries, two underwent thromboendarterectomy, two underwent saphenous vein bypass, and two underwent Dacron graft bypass procedures. Five patients underwent attempted internal carotid thromboendarterectomy and three patients underwent external carotid endarterectomy. Seven patients underwent primary temporal to middle cerebral bypass procedures. There were no perioperative deaths and no patients had permanent neurologic deterioration. There were two postoperative complications. At follow-up 1 to 43 months after operation, five of six patients who had undergone common carotid revascularization had improved neurologically while other treatment groups had no definite improvement. Revascularization of an occluded common carotid artery is a safe procedure that successfully alleviates symptoms of cerebral ischemia. Internal carotid disobliteration and external carotid endarterectomy alone provide limited neurovascular benefit. Benefits of extracranial-to-intracranial bypass were not apparent from this small series.