A team of New York surgeons have reported the development of an adjunct to endarterectomy which they believe will make the procedure "faster, more complete, less traumatic, and more effective."
The technique involves the use of jets of carbon dioxide to separate the diseased inner core of media and intima from the tunica adventitia over long segments of vessels.
So far, the procedure has been used in the treatment of 12 patients with atherosclerosis at Kings County Hospital, Brooklyn. Immediate postoperative results, the surgeons said, "have been most gratifying."
They added: "Long-term followup is now needed to see if the present successes indeed represent 'cures' or whether they are merely ephemeral triumphs over obstructive arterial disease.
"If the former be true, then the surgeon has at his disposal a 'new' technique with which to reconstruct long segments of atherosclerotic and calcified blood vessels."
The research was reported to the New