ABSTRACT
Objective In order to examine the value of the combination of carotid artery ultrasound and Transcrani-al Doppler (TCD) in the evaluation of carotid artery stenosis stenting. Methods Seventy-one carotid stenosis cases con-firmed by digital subtraction angiography (DSA) who had cerebral ischemia symptoms and received stent implantation were reviewed. Carotid artery ultrasound and TCD were adopted to measure the vessel diameter, peak systolic velocity (PSV) of the narrow segment, PSV and pulsatility index (PI) of ipsilateral middle cerebral artery (MCA) before and after the treatment of intravascular stents, and a comparison analysis was made. Results Carotid stent implantation significant-ly improved the inner diameter, PSV of the narrow part, PSV and PI of the MCA on the stenotic side. Inner diameter of the narrow part was 3.13±0.83, 4.77±0.51 and 4.64±0.52 mm at before, one week and one year after the implantation, re-spectively (P<0.05). The PSV of the narrow part was 190.69±113.65, 86.15±30.52 and 90.28±29.79 cm/s at before, one week and one year after the implantation, respectively(P<0.05).PSV of the MCA on the stenotic side was 77.68±14.66, 115.62±22.32 and 108.89±20.29 cm/s at before, one week and one year after the implantation, respectively(P<0.05). PI of the MCA on the stenotic side was 0.81±0.01, 1.07±0.01 and 1.06±0.02 at before, one week and one year after the implantation, respectively (P<0.05). Conclusions The present study demonstrates that the combination of carotid artery ultrasound and TCD can quantitatively detect the vascular structural and hemodynamic improvements following the endo-vascular stenting, indicating that the combination of carotid artery ultrasound and TCD can be used for the accurate as-sessment and follow up of carotid artery stenting treatment.