BACKGROUND: The endovascular treatment of carotid atherosclerotic disease has continuously evolved, although ischemic or embolic complications may occur even with the use of cerebral protection systems. This study was aimed at evaluating the perioperative results of an initial series of patients using the flow reversal system during carotid angioplasty. METHODS: This was a prospective, non-randomized, non-controlled, single-center study. Asymptomatic patients with lesions > 70% or symptomatic patients with lesions > 50% in the internal carotid artery were included. The flow reversal system was used with pre-dilation in selected cases and open-cell stents were used in all cases. We evaluated the occurrence of major and minor strokes, transient ischemic attacks (TIAs), acute myocardial infarction (AMI) and death within 30 days after the procedure. RESULTS: Between September 2010 and February 2011 carotid angioplasty was performed in 17 patients, most of them male (70.6%), with mean age of 66.7 ± 8 years, of which 17.6% were diabetic. Approximately half of the patients were symptomatic, 5 patients had a prior history of stroke (29.4%) and 3 had TIA (17.7%). Technical success was achieved in 100% of the patients. There was one death (5.9%), 24 hours after the procedure in a high surgical risk patient treated in the evolution phase of an AMI due to repetitive TIAs. There were no cases of major or minor strokes or TIAs during the follow-up. CONCLUSIONS: In our study, the flow reversal system proved to be effective and safe in patients undergoing carotid angioplasty.
Carotid stenosis; Angioplasty; Stents
