Treatment of carotid artery disease could be reshaped by 10

Each year, about 400,000 people in the U.S. are newly diagnosed with carotid artery disease, a narrowing of the arteries in the neck that supply blood to the brain. This buildup of plaque is responsible for roughly one-third of all strokes — a leading cause of death nationwide.

A long-awaited study may reshape how doctors treat the condition.

The CREST-2 clinical trial, more than a decade in the making, found that placing a stent in the carotid artery significantly reduced stroke risk in certain patients with asymptomatic but high-grade carotid stenosis, compared to medication alone.

CREST-2 initially was designed to test whether modern medications, such as statins, could be so effective that invasive procedures like surgery and stent placement might no longer be necessary, explained Am