This Article  • References  • Full text PDF  • Reply to article  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Citation map  • Citing articles on HighWire  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in this journal  Social Bookmarking   What's this?

Russel H. Patterson, Jr, MD

Arch Neurol. 1987;44(6):651-652.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

A severe, nonfatal stroke has a ruinous effect on the quality of life, and the evidence suggests that carotid endarterectomy can prevent stroke in selected patients, as I will try to show. Choosing both the proper patient and a skilled surgeon is the key to achieving this goal.

Who is the proper patient? Certainly not the entire pool of patients with asymptomatic bruit. Two studies suggest that the stroke rate is approximately 2% per annum in this group.^1,2 Patients with an asymptomatic bruit face a greater threat of death than they do of stroke, since their annual mortality rate is approximately 4%. Between the low incidence of stroke and a significant mortality rate from causes such as heart disease, it is not likely that the routine performance of carotid endarterectomy in unselected patients with asymptomatic bruit could be shown to be beneficial by any kind of a randomized trial. . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

Author Affiliations
From the Division of Neurosurgery, Cornell New York Hospital.

Footnotes
Accepted for publication Nov 10, 1986.

Reprint requests to Division of Neurosurgery, Cornell New York Hospital, 525 E 68th St, New York, NY 10021 (Dr Patterson).

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati     What's this?