Carotid artery disease greatly increases your risk of stroke and it's essential to remove any blockages it causes before blood is prevented from flowing to the brain.
Dr. Westley Smith, Division Chief of Vascular Surgery at Nazareth Hospital in Northeast Philadelphia, says TCAR, or transcarotid artery revascularization, is a minimally invasive procedure to clear that blocked carotid artery which supplies blood to the brain. Conventional methods require a large incision be made across the neck, but Dr. Smith says this procedure allows physicians to make just a small incision which is only about an inch long.
He says during TCAR, the patient is put on a machine that reverses the flow of blood to the brain. That means that the blood is flowing away from the brain while the plaque is being removed, so pieces of plaque can't break away and travel toward the brain and cause a stroke. In addition, the machine has a small filter, which catches any particles during the plaque removal, again, greatly reducing the risk of stroke.
According to Dr. Smith, candidates for this procedure may include patients who have already had a stroke , have significant blockage of the carotid artery, or may be at too high of a risk for other more invasive procedures. He adds that age, high blood pressure, diabetes, high cholesterol and smoking are all risk factors for blockages of the carotid artery.