The relationship of cardiac and neurological complications to blood pressure changes following carotid endarterectomy.

This study was undertaken to study serial blood pressure changes following carotid endarterectomy (CE) and to analyze their relationship to neurological and cardiac complications. Over a 41 month period, 330 carotid endarterectomies (CE) were studied prospectively. Elevation of blood pressure developed in 214 of 330 (64%) patients undergoing CE. Four patients in the CE group developed perioperative myocardial infarction. None of these patients had hypertension following CE. Eleven patients (3.3%) developed new neurological deficits; 10 of these patients had perioperative hypertension (P = 0.041). Hypertension following carotid endarterectomy increased the likelihood of neurological deficit, but not a myocardial infarction.