Extracranial-Intracranial Bypass Surgery for Stroke Prevention

The concept of performing an extracranial-intracranial (EC-IC) arterial bypass operation for a patient with an internal carotid artery (ICA) or middle cerebral artery (MCA) occlusion is intuitively appealing. In these patients, it is believed that areas of hypoperfusion exist and anastomosis of the superficial temporal artery to the MCA is designed to augment brain perfusion. In vascular territories outside of the brain, bypass procedures performed to augment arterial flow typically improve clinical outcomes. For reasons unknown, however, the brain appears to respond differently to bypass surgery.
Source: JAMA - Category: General Medicine Source Type: research