Cervical artery stenosis, three major treatments can get rid of the trouble!

The artery in the neck can transport blood from the heart to the brain and other parts of the body, so it is one of the main blood vessels supplying the brain and is very important. However, a disease called carotid artery stenosis has caused considerable trouble for the blood supply to the brain. What are the more advanced clinical treatments for this?

Drug treatment

Drug therapy mainly includes stabilization of atherosclerotic plaques and antiplatelet drugs. Commonly used in clinical practice are statins, lipid-lowering drugs, aspirin and/or clopidogrel. In addition, drug therapy also includes drug treatment for risk factors such as hypertension and diabetes. Drug therapy can only stabilize atherosclerotic plaques, minimize thrombosis, and slow the progression of atherosclerosis, thereby reducing the occurrence of cerebral ischemic events, but it cannot fundamentally remove plaques or restore blood flow to brain tissue.

Surgical treatment

Surgical treatment mainly refers to carotid endarterectomy (CEA). It is currently the only method that can remove arterial atherosclerotic plaques and reconstruct normal lumen and blood flow. In the 1980s, many centers in Europe and the United States began to conduct systematic research on CEA. Several multi-center large-sample randomized controlled studies have shown that CEA is significantly better than drug therapy for the treatment of severe carotid stenosis and symptomatic moderate carotid stenosis. Now, CEA can reach 170,000 per year in North America, and has become the first choice for the treatment of carotid stenosis. It is the "gold standard" for the treatment of cervical stenosis.

Interventional therapy

After the 1990s, with the advancement of equipment and devices, carotid stenting angioplasty (CAS) has gradually been developed and popularized, and has a tendency to replace CEA. Carotid stenting is mainly based on intravascular interventional technology, using balloons or stents to expand the narrow part of the carotid artery, thereby achieving the purpose of reconstructing the blood flow of the carotid artery.