Ultrasound scans should only be used for patients at high risk of stroke, advisory says

• There isn’t sufficient evidence to recommend widespread screening or routine ultrasound tests to check for blocked neck arteries that could cause a stroke.
• That’s one key finding from new guidelines on the care of the clogged arteries, released Jan. 31 by the American Heart Association, American Stroke Association and other groups.
• A person’s risk of stroke increases when blood flow to the brain is reduced due to clogging of the carotid arteries on the sides of the neck or the vertebral arteries alongside the spine.
• While there is no proof that routine screening for blocked neck arteries offers any benefit, “if your doctor hears abnormal blood flow when listening to your neck arteries, or if you have two or more risk factors for stroke (such as high cholesterol or a family history), then [ultrasound testing] is a reasonable approach,” guidelines writing committee co-chair Dr. Jonathan L. Halperin, a professor of medicine at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, said in an American Heart Association/American College of Cardiology news release.
• The new guidelines also state that carotid stenting (the placement of an artery-opening mesh tube inside the vessel) and carotid endarterectomy (surgical scraping of plaque from artery wall) are both reasonable and effective ways to open neck arteries that are more than 50 percent blocked.
• The guidelines also stress that for many patients, medications may remain a better approach than either carotid stenting or carotid endarterectomy.
• The guidelines will be published in the journals Stroke and Circulation and in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

Read more at  http://health.usnews.com/health-news/family-health/heart/articles/2011/02/01/experts-issue-guidelines-on-care-of-clogged-neck-arteries