Carotid endarterectomy using regional anesthesia: A benchmark for stenting

Regional block (RB) anesthesia for carotid surgery offers the advantage of continuously monitoring the awake patient's neurologic status during carotid cross-clamping. We retrospectively studied our experience with RB for carotid endarterectomy (CEA) procedures performed during the period January 1, 1995 through December 31, 2001. A total of 388 consecutive CEA procedures were performed; RB was used in 314 and general anesthesia (GA) in 74. Three patients required conversion from RB to GA. GA was used only in patients who could not tolerate a block or needed combined coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) and carotid surgery. New ipsilateral stroke did not occur in RB patients; one patient extended a previous stroke. Three in-hospital deaths occurred; these were all cardiac-related. In GA patients undergoing CEA without CABG (CEA only, n = 58), one stroke and no deaths occurred. The combined stroke and mortality rate for all CEA-only patients was 1.3 per cent (five of 372). RB allows 90 per cent of procedures to be performed without shunting, thus facilitating endarterectomy and patch angioplasty. CEA performed under RB is similar to carotid stenting because both procedures allow monitoring of the awake patient's neurologic status. The very low procedural complication rate in this study warrants the consideration of carotid surgery under regional block as a benchmark for future carotid angioplasty and stenting studies.