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J Thorac Cardiovasc Surg 2002;124:211
© 2002 The American Association for Thoracic Surgery

Letters to the Editor

Reply to the Editor:

Fukuyama Cardiovascular Hospital, 1-26, Sumiyoshi-cho, Fukuyama-city, Hiroshima 720-0809, Japan

The first 20% of the full text of this article appears below.

We appreciate the thoughtful comments by Villa, Moneta, and Donatelli on our article about the surgical strategy for candidates for coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) who have intracranial vascular stenosis. ¹ The strategy for symptomatic and asymptomatic cerebrovascular disease is still controversial, and catheter intervention could be one of the alternatives to surgery, especially for lesions that require a difficult surgical approach.

In extracranial carotid artery disease, endovascular therapy and surgery have been compared in several studies. There was no difference in rates of major complications but lower rates in minor complications for endovascular therapy, which suggests less invasiveness of percutaneous transluminal angioplasty (PTA)/stenting. ² Therefore, Spence and Eliasziw ³ stated that these procedures could be justified for . . . [Full Text of this Article]