Dr. Saliveros Apostolos

The carotid arteries (together with the vertebral arteries) are the main arteries of the neck that supply the head (and the brain) with oxygenated blood. There have been extensive studies that established the relationship between atheromatosis of the carotid arteries and ischemic episodes of the brain.

There are two mechanisms causing brain infraction. 1. Severe stenosis of the lumen of the artery eg > 90% and 2. Embolism is when small pieces detach from the atheromatic plaque go in the brain and cause infarction of the brains vessels. So it is vital to know if there are atheromatic plaques in your carotid arteries. The diagnosis is very simple with the ultrasound.

Especially people who smoke, are diabetics, are hypertensive, have high cholesterol and of course people who have heredity of ischemic episodes.

Therapy of the carotid plaques : according to the percentage of stenosis or the risk of embolism there are two ways of addressing this problem. Treatment with what we call best medical therapy (that is changing the lifestyle and give medical drugs that protect the patient from suffering a stroke). And surgery that removes the high risk plaques from the carotid artery.

digital angiography of a carotid with significant stenosis of about 80%

the atheromatic plaque that was removed from that artery.