What is stroke: Stroke, also known as stroke or cerebrovascular accident, includes two categories of hemorrhagic and ischemic stroke, commonly known as cerebral hemorrhage and cerebral infarction. Ischemic cerebrovascular disease, which is more common clinically and accounts for about 70%-80% of all cerebrovascular patients, is a series of symptoms that occur due to cerebral arteriosclerosis and other causes, which narrow the lumen of cerebral arteries, reduce blood flow or completely block the brain, impair blood circulation to the brain, and damage brain tissue. Stroke is an important disease that endangers people’s health and is characterized by high incidence, high disability, high mortality and high recurrence rate, and has become one of the three leading causes of death along with cardiovascular disease and malignant tumor, and is the primary cause of severe disability. What symptoms are the precursors of stroke: Stroke often catches people off guard. In fact, in daily life, there are often some precursors of stroke. The following are some of the signs of stroke: 1. Suddenly, the mouth and eyes are slanted, the corners of the mouth salivate, speech is slurred, spitting difficulty, aphasia or language, swallowing difficulty, weakness or inflexibility of one limb, unstable walking or sudden fall. This is caused by insufficient cerebrovascular blood supply and motor nerve dysfunction. 2. Numbness of the face, tongue, lips or limbs, some people may have haziness in front of the eyes or have difficulty seeing things for a while, tinnitus or hearing changes. This is due to insufficient blood supply to the cerebral vessels and affects the sensory function of the brain. 3.Disorders of consciousness, manifested as mental depression, always want to sleep or drowsy all day. The personality is also uncharacteristic, suddenly becoming silent, indifferent, walking slowly or talkative, and there is also a transient loss of consciousness, which is also related to cerebral ischemia. 4. Transient limb weakness, transient black haze, slurred speech, frequent yawning, and sudden forgetfulness of all recent events. 5.”mini-stroke”, i.e. TIA, mainly manifests as self-conscious hemiplegia or hemianesthesia, sudden inability to speak or spit out words, or even to speak, but it lasts for a short time, up to 24 hours. In the case of “mini-stroke”, 42% of patients have a stroke within a year. It is important to pay close attention to “mini-strokes” and seek early medical attention. How to determine if you belong to a high-risk group for stroke: 1. People with a family history of stroke. As with hypertension, cerebrovascular disease has a genetic predisposition. 2, people with hypertension or a history of hypertension, hypertension is recognized as the most important risk factor for cerebrovascular disease. 3.Diabetes mellitus. The disorder of sugar metabolism and fat metabolism in diabetic patients increases the risk of arterialization and the occurrence of cerebrovascular disease. 4, heart disease, especially coronary heart disease, cardiac insufficiency, all to varying degrees reduce cerebral blood flow, prone to the formation of cardiac microthrombus dislodgment, so that the risk of cerebrovascular disease increases. 5. Transient cerebral ischemic attack, commonly known as “mini-stroke”, is often a precursor of cerebrovascular disease. If repeated attacks, it is more likely to develop into “complete stroke” in the near future. 6, cerebral atherosclerosis, is the pathological basis of cerebrovascular disease, due to cerebral artery intima thick, lumen narrowing, resulting in insufficient blood supply to the brain, internal carotid artery atherosclerotic plaque micro thrombus off can cause cerebral embolism. 7, other such as obesity, fatty meat, hyperlipidemia, excessive addiction to tobacco and alcohol, short temper, low physical activity, congenital cerebral artery malformation and cervical spondylosis often vertigo hair. It is generally believed that if a person has several susceptibility factors at the same time, the risk of cerebrovascular disease will increase. And when we know who is susceptible to stroke, we should target prevention. Carotid artery stenosis and stroke: Stroke develops in the brain, and the root of the problem may be in the neck. The brain is a special oxygen-demanding organ, with about 750-1000 ml per minute supplied to the brain. Each side of the internal carotid artery passes about 350 milliliters of blood per minute. When the narrowing of the internal carotid artery exceeds 50%, the blood supply to the brain will be severely affected, and the microcirculatory blood flow will slow down and stagnate, which can lead to the formation of blood clots, thus leading to ischemic stroke. If the lumen is narrowed by atherosclerotic plaque in the carotid artery, the plaque can also be dislodged and cause a stroke. Current research has found that nearly 1/3 of strokes are related to obstructive lesions in the carotid arteries, especially carotid stenosis from various causes. How to know if you have carotid artery stenosis: We divide patients into two categories, those who are asymptomatic and those who are symptomatic. The asymptomatic ones are not easily detected, but represent the majority. How do you detect them? We say that if you are a person who values your quality of life, you should undergo some necessary tests, especially if you are over 50 years old and have hypertension, coronary artery or peripheral arteriosclerosis, you should consider a carotid ultrasound to exclude carotid artery stenosis. There are also some patients with carotid stenosis who show some symptoms, the common one is TIA attack, which is a sudden onset of dizziness, temporary blackness in one eye, numbness and weakness in arms and legs, and slurred speech. This symptom may appear for a few minutes or hours, but disappears completely within 24 hours, which is often referred to as a “mini-stroke”. Don’t delay to see a doctor if you have this condition. Patients who have already had a cerebral embolism should also be checked for carotid artery stenosis as long as they recover well, because these patients will suffer from cerebral embolism again, and it will be a more serious cerebral embolism. How to check for carotid stenosis? It is very simple, just go to a hospital with conditions to do a special CT or MRI of the neck angiography, which can clearly diagnose whether there is carotid artery stenosis. Shanghai Oriental Hospital has the most advanced Dazzle Dual Source CT, 3.0T MRI and image post-processing system, which can easily and quickly perform accurate examination of carotid vessels. Carotid artery stenosis treatment – carotid artery stenting: The traditional treatment method is surgery, i.e. carotid endarterectomy, which needs to be performed under general anesthesia, with heavy intraoperative bleeding, risk of carotid nerve injury and infection, and a long hospital stay. In the past decade, with the development of endovascular interventional technology, carotid endoluminal angioplasty and carotid stenting have become increasingly mature, especially the development of cerebral protection technology, which provides safer conditions for carotid stenting technology. Carotid stenting is a minimally invasive treatment technique that uses special devices to expand and support the stenosis by placing a metal stent in the stenosis of the carotid artery through the lumen of the vessel. It is a new and advantageous technique for treating carotid artery stenosis and preventing stroke because it is less invasive, easier to perform, has fewer complications, and has comparable results to traditional surgery. The procedure is usually performed under local anesthesia, and the patient is fully awake during the operation. The femoral artery is punctured at the root of the thigh for angiography, dilated with a balloon catheter, and then a stent delivery catheter is used to deliver the stent to the stenosis site and release it, thus completely restoring the normal blood flow and anatomical integrity of the carotid artery. It is minimally invasive, effective and has a rapid recovery.