Extracranial cerebral arterial atherosclerosis in Iranian patients suffering ischemic strokes.

Background: to determine the distribution and severity of extracranial carotid arterial atherosclerosis in iranian patients with ischemic stroke. methods: 328 patients with ischemic stroke were included in this study. doppler ultrasound was used for evaluation ofatherosclerosis in extracranial carotid arteries. the nascet criteria were used to measure carotid stenosis. results: ninety of 328 patients (27.4%) were found to have atherosclerotic plaques; 40 of these patients were women and 50 were men. sixty-eight patients (20.7%) had artery stenosis <50%, 13 patients (3.95%) had 50-70 % artery stenosis and 6 (1.8%) had >70% artery stenosis.conclusions: extracranial atherosclerosis is not rare in iranian patients with ischemic stroke, but most carotid artery lesions were plaques with <50% stenosis.