Bilateral asymptomatic common carotid artery stenosis: Mouse model for stroke research.

BACKGROUND

Asymptomatic carotid artery stenosis has become more prevalent worldwide and is often associated with a poor prognosis. Numerous guidelines highlighted surgical interventions as treatment for carotid artery stenosis, but only a few recommendations were made regarding non-surgical interventions due to its limited data.

AIMS

This study aims to develop a mice model for research in non-surgical interventions of asymptomatic carotid artery stenosis.

METHODS

Adult male , Wistar strain models with bilateral asymptomatic common carotid artery stenosis (BACAS) were created by ligating the common carotid artery with a 0.6 mm diameter needle and then removing the needle. The mice's body weight, clinical signs and symptoms, and post-mortem brain analysis were compared between the sham-operated group and the BACAS group.

RESULTS

The mortality rate among the BACAS group is 11.11%. There is no significant difference in mean body weight before surgery, after the observation period, and percentage of weight decrease between sham-operated and BACAS groups ( = 0.710, 0.632, and 0.806, respectively). None of the surviving mice in this study exhibit signs of motor paralysis. Gross examination of the brain reveals no signs of infarction or hemorrhage.

CONCLUSION

We have established a novel BACAS mouse model which is cost-efficient, easy to produce, and with no significant alteration in body weight, clinical parameters, and brain morphology.