Carotid Endarterectomy - Complications

Complications

For patients to benefit from revascularization, the surgeon's complication rate (30 day stroke and death) must remain ≤3% for asymptomatic and ≤6% of symptomatic patients. Other surgical complications include Hemorrhage of the wound bed, which is potentially life-threatening, as swelling of the neck due to hematoma could compress the trachea. Rarely, the hypoglossal nerve can be damaged during surgery. This is likely to result in fasciculations developing on the tongue and paralysis of the affected side: on sticking it out, the patient's tongue will deviate toward the affected side. Another rare but potentially serious complication is hyperperfusion syndrome because of the sudden increase in perfusion of the vasculature distal to stenosis.