WHAT ARE THE INDICATIONS FOR A CAROTID DUPLEX SCAN

Carotid duplex scanning offers a quick and non-invasive method for det ecting extracranial carotid arterial disease, However, the increasing awareness of the association of carotid disease and cerebrovascular sy mptoms, together with the recognition that carotid endarterectomy offe rs the possibility of prevention of a major stroke [1], means that req uests for investigation are constantly increasing, The Dundee Vascular Laboratory undertakes the majority of carotid duplex scans in the Tay side region and we have found an increasing burden is being placed on a limited resource that is required for other vascular investigations, In 1994 we carried out 1389 carotid examinations of which 929 (66.9%) showed either no abnormality or no more than a 50% stenosis in one ve ssel, More importantly, of the 1052 new requests 832 (79.1%) fell into the same category, In order to ascertain if the number of new request s could be reduced a retrospective analysis of the referral indication s for a carotid duplex scan in the last 5 years has been undertaken.