The impact of carotid artery plaque echogenicity on the rate of solid cerebral microembolism during carotid artery stenting

Aims: Carotid artery stenting (CAS) may be associated with clinically silent cerebral embolic events. We prospectively evaluated the association of the sonographic echogenicity of carotid artery plaque with solid cerebral microembolism during CAS. Methods: Twenty-seven patients with symptomatic high-grade carotid artery stenoses scheduled to undergo CAS were included in the study. A computer-assisted measure of echogenicity, the grey scale median (GSM), was used to quantify the echogenicity of carotid artery plaques on normalized sonographic B-mode images. Dual-frequency transcranial Doppler sonography was used…