Extracranial carotid artery injury. Current surgical management.

Fifty patients were treated for extracranial carotid artery trauma during the period from 1954 through 1981. The overall mortality rate was 20 percent. Primary repair was achieved in 38 patients (76 percent) with a mortality of 7.8 percent, and ligation was performed in six patients (12 percent) with a 50 percent mortality. The left carotid system was injured more frequently than the right; hemorrhage from an isolated carotid injury was readily controlled by digital pressure. Associated injuries affected the prognosis adversely. Significant neurologic deficits were present in 12 patients on first admission but the presence of neurologic deficit or coma did not serve as a contraindication to arterial repair and restoration of cerebrovascular continuity. Arteriography was not utilized once the clinical diagnosis of carotid arterial injury was made, but it was utilized when the proximity of the cervical injury provided the only suggestive evidence that vascular damage may have occurred. The presence of significant shock, coma, or neurologic deficit represent adverse prognostic features but do not contraindicate carotid repair. Profuse bleeding from a carotid injury or the presence of severe posthemorrhagic shock require urgent surgery. If control of bleeding is difficult to achieve, then ligation is preferred to suture repair.