Carotid Artery Disease

Carotid Artery Disease

Signs and Symptoms
Diagnosis
Treatment

Signs and Symptoms

Carotid artery blockages are caused by hardening of the arteries, called atherosclerosis. Risk factors for atherosclerosis include:

• Diabetes
• Smoking cigarettes
• High cholesterol
• High blood pressure

Strokes occur when pieces of the diseased artery break off and travel into the brain, eventually blocking blood flow in the artery, which causes the part of the brain served by the blocked artery to die. This can either cause a full-blown stroke, resulting in permanent neurological problems in a minority of people, a or a transient ischemic attack (TIA), which produces the same symptoms as a stroke but resolves in less than a day, often in a matter of minutes.

Symptoms of both stroke and a transient ischemic attack (TIA) include:

• Weakness or paralysis of a limb or one side of the body
• Inability to speak or articulate clearly
• Blindness or other visual changes in one or both eyes

Along with atherosclerosis there are a number of less common conditions that also can affect the carotid arteries, including:

• Aneurysms, or swelling of the artery
• Carotid body tumors, which are tumor that arises from and involves the carotid arteries
• Recurrent blockages after prior carotid artery surgery
• Fibromuscular dysplasia, an inflammatory condition of the artery
• Inominate artery disease, or blockages in an artery below the carotid artery
• Carotid artery dissections, where the wall of the artery splits

Reviewed by health care specialists at UCSF Medical Center.
Last updated May 8, 2007