Combined carotid and transcranial color-coded sonography in acute ischemic stroke.

The objective of this study is to clarify whether the combination of carotid duplex sonography (CD) and transcranial color-coded sonography (TCCS) can accurately detect occlusive lesions in extra and intracranial brain arteries in acute stroke patients, using angiography as the standard. Just before angiography, we performed CD and TCCS in 40 consecutive patients within 24 h after stroke onset. We assessed 320 vessels in total, bilateral internal carotid arteries, vertebral arteries, M1 segments of middle cerebral arteries (MCAs), and P2 segments of posterior cerebral arteries (PCAs). Out of all vessels, 250 (78.1%) could be evaluated by neurosonography because 32 MCAs and 38 PCAs were excluded due to inadequate acoustic windows for TCCS. Significant occlusive lesions (>50%) were observed in 21 out of 250 vessels by neurosonography. Angiography confirmed 20 occlusive lesions as revealed by neurosonography. In the remaining 229 neurosonographically normal vessels, angiography showed no significant lesions except M2 occlusions. The accuracy, sensitivity, and specificity of neurosonography for the detection of occlusive vessels were 99.6, 100 and 99.6%, respectively. Occlusive lesions were observed in 20 of all patients by neurosonography. Nineteen of them were confirmed by angiography. The combination of CD and TCCS can make an accurate diagnosis for significant occlusive lesions in brain arteries in acute stroke patients.