2017 Volume 57 Issue 2 Pages 15-19
The incidence of cerebrovascular disease (CVD) and postoperative cerebrovascular adverse events in Japanese patients with peripheral arterial disease (PAD) is not well known. We therefore retrospectively investigated 46 consecutive patients with PAD who underwent preoperative screening for carotid and intracranial artery diseases by magnetic resonance angiography (MRA) at our institute between April 2015 and January 2016. MRA revealed abnormalities of cerebrovascular lesions in 37 patients (73.9%), including cerebral infarction in 34, carotid artery stenosis in 27, and cerebral aneurysm in 5. Eight patients (17.4%) required cerebrovascular surgery prior to the surgery for PAD. Postoperative cerebrovascular adverse events were not detected in any of the patients undergoing surgery for PAD in our series. If preoperative screening for carotid and intracranial artery diseases had not been carried out, the affected patients might have developed cerebrovascular adverse events after surgery for PAD. In conclusion, screening for carotid and intracranial artery diseases by MRA may be useful for evaluating cerebrovascular lesions in patients with PAD undergoing elective revascularization surgery.
