New Trends and Developments in Carotid Artery Disease

This textbook from the European Vascular Course represents the current carotid database analyzed from a primarily European viewpoint. There is no other area in vascular surgery (or perhaps medicine) in which a huge volume of collected data is subjected to a wider degree of interpretation. Percent degrees of carotid stenoses, measured by different modalities interpreted with different techniques, can markedly alter the statistical benefit of operative therapy. In addition, the specific endpoints assessed (transient ischemic attacks, completed, stroke, death), the amount of resources spent in their determination (the operating surgeon's clinical examination, independent neurologist examination, computed tomography), and the details of the intervention (surgeon experience, patch closure, intraoperative monitoring) have been discussed and argued in multiple journals. Does this text offer any useful assistance to the practicing vascular surgeon attempting to make sense of the current carotid database? I believe the answer to this question is yes for the following reasons. I ) The text is well organized, with multiple data tables summarizing the important points of each topic in most of the sections. Organization of vast volumes of data is critical for the evaluation of carotid disease. 2 ) The chapters are relatively short (