The use of patch angioplasty to alter the incidence of carotid restenosis following thromboendarterectomy.

Abstract

Eighty-nine consecutive patients were followed for twelve to twenty-four months after carotid thromboendarterectomy. Forty-seven underwent operations using a standard carotid closure; a second group of forty-two patients had a saphenous vein patch graft applied in closure. The patients were evaluated with carotid duplex scans at regular intervals to evaluate the incidence of early restenosis. Patients with positive duplex scans underwent arterial angiography or digital subtraction angiography. Operative mortality was zero. Twelve late deaths occurred; eleven due to cardiac disease. In the unpatched group, 19.1% of the patients developed significant restenosis (a luminal narrowing of greater than 50%) with only a 2.4% incidence occurring in the patched group, a statistically significant difference (p less that 0.05). There was a higher incidence of symptomatic restenosis in the unpatched group, though the results were not considered significant. Venous patch rupture was seen in three patients who have not been included in the study group. All of these had venous patches harvested from a distal greater saphenous vein site at the ankle. The authors recommend venous patch closure with a thicker patch taken from the proximal saphenous vein at the groin to reduce the incidence of early restenosis and to avoid venous patch rupture. Regular non-invasive evaluation is recommended to detect restenosis with careful clinical follow-up to evaluate neurologic complications.