New Ischemic Cerebral Lesions After Endarterectomy vs. Stenting for the Treatment of Symptomatic Carotid Stenosis

Background and purpose. Even if periprocedural cerebral microembolism associated with carotid endarterectomy or stenting usually does not manifest as clinically overt stroke, neuropsychological disturbances resulting from these events represent an important clinical and socioeconomic problem. Still, it remains unclear whether the use proximal protection can lower the incidence of cerebral embolism associated with the treatment of carotid stenosis. Materials and methods. This was a prospective randomised single-centre study, which was aimed at comparison of surgical eversion endarterectomy with stenting under proximal protection in symptomatic patients. The investigators evaluated the incidence of new ischaemic lesions revealed by the diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging 2-4 days after the treatment and neurologic events.