[Risk surgery of the carotid. A balanced assessment of the use of locoregional anesthesia].

The authors report their experience with regional anaesthesia in carotid surgery. They performed 80 carotid endarterectomies in 79 patients. Thirty-three patients were at high surgical risk because of contralateral internal carotid artery occlusion or bilateral stenosis (greater than 70%) or ischemic brain areas for past stroke. In this high risk group 4 strokes were registered in the postoperative period, while no strokes appeared in patients non at risk.