In this blog post Prof. Fanelli, a world-wide expert on carotid artery stenting and teaching, focuses on the website www.carotidworld.org. The site is entirely devoted to carotid pathology.

INTRODUCTION:

In this blog post Prof. Fanelli, a world-wide expert on carotid artery stenting and teaching, focuses on the website www.carotidworld.org. The site is entirely devoted to carotid pathology.

Stroke is the third leading cause of death and the most common cause of long-term disability in the western world. Roughly 25 % of strokes are due to carotid artery disease. Today, carotid endarterectomy is decided to be the standard of care for management of significant carotid artery disease within the vascular community. However, the accumulation of experience and improvement of endovascular tools such as stents and filters, and the strong demand from society for use of a less invasive method than the open surgery technique has made carotid artery stenting (CAS) an alternative. CAS may be seen as an equivalent choice to carotid endarterectomy when demographics such as patient age and anatomy, surgical risk, and operator experience are considered.

Carotid pathology has always been one of the most widespread vascular diseases and  for this reason the endovascular treatment of this pathology with stenting (CAS) has been  quickly expanding in recent years.

The introduction of more and more updated stents and of modern cerebral protection  devices has undoubtedly contributed to the success of the vascular techniques and their  brilliant results have started a sort of competition with traditional surgery.

Anyway, if CAS has to be performed, the operator’s learning curve is fundamental. This  means that practical experience must be constantly accompanied and supported by operators’ good knowledge of the different procedures and most importantly of the several  devices today at their disposal.

Thus, to keep specialists well informed and overall updated, the website www.carotidworld.org has been conceived being entirely devoted to carotid pathology and exclusively addressing physicians.

Carotidworld is an educational project intended to provide colleagues with information  about procedural techniques, different methods of common carotid artery catheterization,  description of carotid anatomy and overview of those devices necessary for correctly  performing a procedure.

A section of this website is dedicated to the medical therapy whose combination with the  endovascular treatment is fundamental and to methods and techniques fit for a correct  evaluation of the pre-procedural plaque.

Any visitor to the Carotidworld website will get informed about the latest articles published  on the matter, about the most updated trials and their results and about the most recent news regarding carotid pathology. In addition a calendar will show a list of the most  important vascular courses and congresses.

A specific section has also been planned for the website users’ convenience to give them  an accurate description of and technical comment on all the material nowadays  commercially available, from guidewires to introducers, catheters and guidecatheters to  balloons of any type. Some challenging cases are also available in another dedicated section in order to give some ideas and to show “how to do”.

The access to the web site is completely free; only a registration is required to access some of the sections. Welcome to try it out!

Prof. Fabrizio Fanelli