RL: Relationship of Transient Ischemic Attacks and Angiographically Demonstrable Lesions of Carotid Artery. Stroke

8:483-486, (July-August 1977) concluded that 88 % of patients with transient ischemic attacks manifested either by amaurosis fugax or with hemispheric transient ischemic attacks are amenable to sur-gical reconstruction. Of that 88%, 71 % had lesion located at the carotid bifurcation and 17 % had complete occlusion of the internal carotid artery at the bifurcation. The 17 % are suggested by the authors to be candidates for extracranial-intracranial bypass procedure. The remaining 12 % are judged not to be surgically cor-rectable, 5 % had disease localized to the carotid siphon and 7 % had no identifiable lesion. That patients with carotid siphon disease, either stenosis or ul-ceration, are also candidates for the bypass procedure with subse-quent good results is documented in the recent literature by Gratzl et al. and Spetzler et al.1-2 Consequently, I think the conclusion of the paper should be that 93 % of all the arteries examined are amenable to surgical reconstruction, 71 % for carotid endarterec-tomy and 22 % for the bypass procedure