Current vascular pharmacology
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Curr Vasc Pharmacol · Jul 2013
Review Comparative StudyReview of trans-atlantic cardiovascular best medical therapy guidelines - recommendations for asymptomatic carotid atherosclerosis.
The annual rate of ipsilateral stroke associated with asymptomatic carotid stenosis has fallen from 2-4% to <1% in the last 20 years due to improvements in medical therapy. The fundamental benefits of this are relevant to whether patients undergo revascularisation or not. We aimed to evaluate existing international guidelines for the management of carotid stenosis, identifying important similarities and differences. ⋯ There is now clear, evidence based guidance from British, European and US cardiovascular bodies regarding optimal targets for risk factor modification. These can be adopted as standard operating procedure for clinical practice and the medical arms of carotid interventional trials. In the future imaging biomarkers may help provide an understanding of the risk of an individual carotid lesion to help guide therapy.