Ultrasound diagnostics of carotid and vertebral arteries

Stroke is the third leading cause of death and themain cause ofmajor disability worldwide.Each yearmore than 700,000 people experience a new or recurrent stroke and on average someone dies every 4min of a stroke (1). In Serbia stroke is the first cause of death among women and the second one among men. While the percentage of strokes attributed to carotid disease is relatively low, the overall social and economic burden is high (2). It is, therefore, important to identify and manage carotid atherosclerosis with the aim of stroke prevention. The presence of an atherosclerotic lesion in the carotid bulb or in the extracranial internal carotid artery (ICA) is associated with elevated stroke risk (3). Severalmechanisms are attributable to the increased risk of cerebrovascular events including decrease in the blood flow resulting from critical stenosis or occlusion, or the stenotic lesion can also be the source of thromboembolic events. In this article the authors are going to focus on some important aspects of ultrasound diagnostics of extracranial parts of brain arteries