Detection of cerebral blood flow changes in patients with symptomatic carotid artery stenosis by near-infrared-spectroscopy

Introduction: Carotid artery stenosis often cause acute stroke. Simple non-invasive cerebral blood flow (CBF) measurements could lead to a better monitoring of such patients and improved evaluation of recurrent stroke risk. Therefore we used near-infrared-spectroscopy (NIRS) for detecting cerebral perfusion disturbances due to severe carotid stenosis. Methods: 24 patients with relevant (>70%) carotid artery stenosis were included (11 symptomatic and 13 asymptomatic). Kinetics of an intravenous bolus of the dye indocyanine-green (ICG) was acquired by non-invasive NIRS. Following parameters bolus-peak-time (BPT),…