Dynamics of clinical semiotics in children with pathological tortuosity of internal carotid arteries in remote period after surgical management.

The present study enrolling a total of eighty-eight 4-to-16-year-old children and adolescents was aimed at detailed elaboration and formalization of clinical signs of the internal carotid artery pathological kinking syndrome. To achieve these objectives, the authors carried out a comparative analysis of clinical manifestations of the disease in the surgically treated subjects (constituting the Surgery Group comprising 43 children and adolescents) and non-operated patients (making up the Comparison Group consisting of 45 age- and gender-matched subjects). There were no baseline differences in the incidence rate of clinical syndromes and symptoms between the groups of the would-be operated and conservatively treated patients. Also studied were the remote outcomes (1-to-12-year follow up) of surgical correction for pathological tortuosity of the internal carotid artery. The incidence rate of regression of neurological symptomatology along different clinical signs after surgery was shown to vary within a wide range from 11.6% to 96.3%. Resection of the proximal portion of the internal carotid artery with re-implantation into the old ostium turned out to be clinically effective in 90.0% of cases, with the haemodynamic efficacy amounting to 83.3%. Arteriolysis of the internal carotid artery rendered a clinical effect in 75% of cases, with a haemodynamical effect thereof equalling 25.0%. The decision as to the type of a surgical intervention to perform was primarily made based on the findings of angiography of the internal carotid artery. The operation of arteriolysis did not lead to deterioration of the child's condition.