BACKGROUND The object of this study was to investigate the potential role of FGF23 on plaque stability in type 2 diabetic patients with internal carotid artery stenosis. METHODS In this retrospective observational study, we analyzed FGF23 serum level in 361 type 2 diabetic patients with internal carotid artery stenosis undergoing carotid endarterectomy and in 598 diabetic controls without car...

We prospectively studied the results of carotid angiography in 45 patients with transient or nondisabling neurologic deficits caused by lacunar infarction in the internal capsule or corona radiata and demonstrated by computed tomography. An ipsilateral stenosis at the bifurcation of the internal carotid artery was found in 14 patients (31%, 95% confidence limits 18-47%), seven of whom also had ...

BACKGROUND Stroke associated with acute carotid occlusion is associated with poor effectiveness of tissue plasminogen activator (tPA) thrombolysis and poor prognosis. Rupture of atherosclerotic plaques resulting in vascular occlusions may occur on plaques, causing variable stenosis. We hypothesized that degree of stenosis may affect recanalization rates with tPA. Ultrasound+tPA (sonothrombolysi...

Objective Measurement of the degree of stenosis is not enough to decide on the treatment strategy for patients with carotid stenosis. Plaque morphology examination is needed for such a decision-making. Thus, we evaluated the usefulness of plaque magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to decide on the modality of treatment for patients with carotid atherosclerotic plaques. Materials and Methods Fift...

BACKGROUND In the United States, 795,000 people suffer strokes each year; 10-15 % of these strokes can be attributed to stenosis caused by plaque in the carotid artery, a major stroke phenotype risk factor. Studies comparing treatments for the management of asymptomatic carotid stenosis are challenging for at least two reasons: 1) administrative billing codes (i.e., Current Procedural Terminolo...

Doppler ultrasound is a noninvasive technique which is widely used in medicine for the assessment of blood flow in vessels. Therefore, Doppler ultrasonography is known as a reliable technique, which demonstrates the flow characteristics and resistance of internal carotid arteries in stenosis and occlusion conditions. In this study, internal carotid arterial Doppler signals recorded from 130 sub...

BACKGROUND White matter lesions (WML) are commonly seen on brain MRI and are generally considered a marker of tissue damage from cerebral small vessel disease. WML are associated with increasing age and vascular risk factors, but their precise cause is unknown. A role for carotid artery atherothromboemboli has been suggested. If this is the case, more WML would be expected ipsilateral to increa...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Asymptomatic patients with carotid stenosis benefit less from carotid endarterectomy (CEA) than symptomatic patients because the risk of embolic events is lower, but it is not known whether the hemodynamic effect of CEA is different between the groups. We evaluated hemodynamics of symptomatic and asymptomatic patient groups before and after CEA. METHODS Forty-six indepe...

OBJECTIVE Degenerative aortic stenosis shows similarities with atherosclerosis. To confirm the hypothesis that aortic stenosis is an "atherosclerosis-like" disease, we investigated the association between degenerative aortic stenosis and atherosclerosis of carotid arteries. METHODS We studied 270 consecutive patients, 135 with degenerative aortic stenosis (trans-aortic peak velocity ≥ 2 m/sec...

OBJECTIVE To determine the safest, least costly, and most effective way to select patients with symptomatic carotid ischaemic events for carotid angiography before carotid endarterectomy. DESIGN Prospective cohort study. SETTING University departments of clinical neurosciences and clinical neurology. PATIENTS 485 Patients with carotid territory transient ischaemic attacks of the brain (n ...