Incidental asymptomatic carotid bruits in patients scheduled for peripheral vascular reconstruction: results of cerebral and coronary angiography.

From 1978 to 1982 routine preoperative coronary angiography was performed in a series of 1000 patients under consideration for elective peripheral vascular reconstruction, including 295 who were selected primarily because of recognized extracranial cerebrovascular disease. Incidental asymptomatic carotid bruits were discovered in 144 (20%) of the remaining 705 patients who primarily were scheduled for such procedures as aortic replacement, lower extremity revascularization, or visceral artery bypass, and 139 of these 144 patients underwent cerebral angiography as well as cardiac catheterization. Carotid stenosis exceeding 50% of lumen diameter was documented by biplanar angiography in 39 (58%) of 67 patients with unilateral bruits and in 54 (75%) of 72 patients with bilateral bruits (p = 0.0471), and greater than 75% stenosis was present in 42% and 46% of these subsets, respectively. Cardiac catheterization revealed severe, surgically correctable coronary artery disease (CAD) in 29% of patients with incidental carotid bruits and in 24% of those without bruits, as well as in 32% of patients who had documented carotid stenosis and in 22% of those who did not. Although these differences were not statistically valid, the incidence of severe, correctable CAD was significantly higher among patients suspected to have CAD by standard clinical criteria (33% to 38%) than among those who were not (13%), irrespective of whether carotid bruits were present (p = 0.0021) or absent (p = 3.48 X 10(-9). Prophylactic carotid endarterectomy was performed in 54 patients (bilateral in nine), with one death (1.6%) and one postoperative stroke. In addition, 153 patients underwent elective myocardial revascularization in an attempt to reduce subsequent surgical risk and enhance late survival, with an early mortality rate of 5.2%. Only three strokes (0.4%) occurred after a total of 714 other peripheral vascular procedures in this series, and the overall operative mortality rate was 2.7%. While this study does not resolve the controversy concerning the management of incidental asymptomatic carotid bruits in patients scheduled for other operations, it provides new perspective regarding synchronous carotid and coronary disease and confirms the low risk for subsequent stroke and death after appropriate carotid and coronary reconstruction.