Monitoring of regional cerebral oxygenation by near-infrared spectroscopy in carotid arterial stenting: preliminary study.

In carotid arterial stenting (CAS), ischemic complications and cerebral hyperperfusion are recognized as devastating complications. To detect these complications in early stages, we assessed the feasibility for real-time measurement of regional oxygen saturation (rSO2) of the brain in 24 patients with symptomatic extracranial carotid artery stenosis in CAS. The rSO2 changes were easy to evaluate and significantly correlated with the ischemic neurological symptoms as well as postoperative hyperperfusion detected by single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT). Moreover, the pattern of changes in rSO2 was significantly correlated with the asymmetry index and the cerebral vasoreactivity examined by preoperative SPECT. Therefore, simultaneous monitoring of rSO2 is feasible in detecting early hemodynamic complications in CAS.