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- Title
Can bruits distinguish high-grade from moderate symptomatic carotid stenosis? The North American Symptomatic Carotid Endarterectomy Trial.
- Authors
Sauvé, J S; Thorpe, K E; Sackett, D L; Taylor, W; Barnett, H J; Haynes, R B; Fox, A J
- Abstract
<bold>Objective: </bold>To determine whether cervical bruits, alone or combined with other clinical characteristics, can distinguish high-grade (70% to 99%) carotid artery stenoses from less severe stenoses in patients with symptoms of cerebrovascular disease.<bold>Design: </bold>Cross-sectional comparison of clinical observations with contemporaneous angiography.<bold>Setting: </bold>The North American Symptomatic Carotid Endarterectomy Trial (NASCET), a multicenter randomized controlled trial of carotid endarterectomy.<bold>Patients: </bold>All patients enrolled in the NASCET from its inception in 1988 to November 1991.<bold>Results: </bold>A focal ipsilateral carotid bruit had a sensitivity of 63% and a specificity of 61% for high-grade stenosis and, when absent, only lowered the probability for high-grade stenosis from a pretest value of 52% to a post-test probability of 40%. When combined with four other clinical characteristics (an infarction on computed tomography of the head, a carotid ultrasound scan suggesting more than 90% stenosis, a transient ischemic attack rather than a minor stroke as a qualifying event, and a retinal rather than a hemispheric qualifying event), the predicted probabilities of high-grade stenosis ranged from a low of 18% (when none of the features was present) to a high of 94% (when all the features were present.<bold>Conclusions: </bold>Cervical bruits alone were not sufficiently predictive of high-grade symptomatic carotid stenosis to be useful in selecting patients for angiography; they were absent in over one third of patients with high-grade stenosis. When combined with other clinical variables, patients with high or low probabilities of 70% to 99% stenoses could be identified, but this prediction model still missed many individuals with high-grade stenosis, even in this training set of selected patients.
- Publication
Annals of Internal Medicine, 1994, Vol 120, Issue 8, p633
- ISSN
0003-4819
- Publication type
journal article
- DOI
10.7326/0003-4819-120-8-199404150-00002