Clinical features and outcomes of carotid artery stenting by clinical expert consensus criteria: a report from the CARE registry.

BACKGROUND: In 2007, a multispecialty society task force published a clinical expert consensus document (CECD) on carotid stenting (CAS), containing recommendations for appropriate patient selection and quality of care. The CECD also inspired creation of a large, national registry of carotid revascularization, the Carotid Artery Revascularization and Endarterectomy (CARE) registry. Our goal here was to investigate whether initial CAS procedures submitted to CARE conformed to CECD recommendations, and examine their clinical outcomes.

METHODS: We analyzed CAS procedures for the period January 1, 2005 through December 31, 2008. These were grouped into those that conformed to CECD recommendations [CECD(+), n = 4,636, 79.8%] and those that did not [CECD(-), n = 1,168, 20.2%].

RESULTS: The CECD(+) patients were older than CECD(-) patients (71.5 +/- 10.3 vs. 67.6 +/- 10.3 years, P = 0.001, respectively), and more frequently had chronic kidney disease (46.9% vs. 17.8%, P = 0.001), chronic lung disease (33.0% vs. 12.4%, P = 0.001), ejection fraction <or= 0.30 (13.5% vs. 5.5%, P = 0.001) and contralateral carotid artery occlusion (12.7% vs. 4.6%, P = 0.001). Clinical outcomes at 30 days were similar, including death (1.24% vs. 0.76%, P = 0.184), stroke (5.32% vs. 5.34%, P = 0.954), and death, stroke, or MI (7.04% vs. 6.95%, P = 0.944).

CONCLUSIONS: Most CAS procedures submitted to CARE conformed to CECD recommendations for patient selection. For reported data, clinical outcomes at 30 days were similar for procedures meeting and those not meeting recommendations, and were similar to outcomes reported by other large registries. These findings suggest that acceptable patient selection criteria for CAS are employed as it expands beyond investigators into more widespread clinical practice.