Carotid endarterectomy under regional (conductive) anesthesia

Carotid endarterectomy is reliable in the prevention of strokes due to arteriosclerotic disease at the carotid bifurcation. This is a retrospective review of 314 carotid endarterectomies performed at the University Health Center of Pittsburgh. The objectives of the study were to determine if regional anesthesia was a safe technique for carotid endarterectomy and to determine whether the neurologic complications that occurred were embolic or ischemic in origin. In patients who were neurologically intact before operation, the perioperative mortality was 0.88% and the incidence of neurologic complications was 3.1%. This is comparable to the current literature. Observations of the awake patient suggested that half the neurologic deficits that occurred in this series were due to embolization rather than to cerebral ischemia. Further more, the incidence of non-neurologic complications under general anesthesia was 12.9%. Under regional anesthesia, the incidence of non-neurologic complications was 2.8%. The data supports carotid endarterectomy under regional block as safe and reliable method.