Acute Carotid Artery Thrombosis: Description of 12 Surgically Treated Cases

The morbidity and mortality of stroke secondary to acute internal carotid artery thrombosis range from 40 to 69% and from 15 to 55%, respectively, after purely medical treatment. This report describes a series of 12 patients who underwent urgent surgical treatment for primary acute carotid artery thrombosis between January 1999 and December 2002. Upon admission, all patients had severe neurologic deficits contralateral to carotid artery thrombosis. One patient experienced ongoing changes in the level of consciousness. The interval between the onset of symptoms and admission was less than 6 hr in all cases. Initial work-up in all patients included a brain computed tomographic scan with contrast injection and carotid duplex scan. The operative procedure consisted of carotid thomboemdarterectomy after shunt placement with prosthetic patch closure. Intraoperative angiography was performed in all cases. Following treatment, we observed deterioration of neurologic status leading to death in one case; improvement with partial regression of initial neurologic deficit in two cases, including one patient who died from causes unrelated to carotid artery disease; and full neurologic recovery in nine cases. The delay to revascularization was longer than 6 hr in both patients who died. These data support surgical intervention for carotid artery thrombosis in selected patients without major disturbances of consciousness or hemorragic infarction, provided that the delay to revascularization is less than 6 hr.