Modern-day evidence-based medicine mandates a strong understanding of current local and international guidelines. Surgeons rely heavily on these reports, but what to do when they differ? We have partnered with the ESVS podcast in creating the Transatlantic Series, where we compare and contrast our respective society guidelines. In this inaugural episode, we explore the SVS carotid artery disease guidelines published in 2022 and the recently updated ESVS guidelines published in 2023.

Representing the American perspective, we are excited to speak with Dr. Ali AbuRahma. Dr. AbuRahma is the former president of the Society of Vascular Surgery, the Chief of Vascular and Endovascular Surgery at the Charleston Area Medical Centre at West Virginia University, and the corresponding author of the latest SVS guidelines on extracranial cerebrovascular disease.

Representing the European perspective, we are delighted to speak with Dr. Barbara Rantner. Dr. Rantner is the co-chair of the 2023 European Society of Vascular Surgery Clinical Practice Guidelines on the Management of Atherosclerotic Carotid and Vertebral Artery Disease and a leading physician at the Ludwig-Maximillian University Hospital in Munich, Germany.

Further reading and links:

• The North American Symptomatic Carotid Endarterectomy Trial (NASCET) & Audible Bleeding Landmark Papers NASCET Episode

• Randomized trial of endarterectomy for recently symptomatic carotid stenosis: final results of the MRC European Carotid Surgery Trial (ECST)

• The 2nd European Carotid Surgery Trial (ECST-2): rationale and protocol for a randomized clinical trial comparing immediate revascularisation versus optimized medical therapy alone in patients with symptomatic and asymptomatic carotid stenosis at low to intermediate risk of stroke

• European Stroke Organisation (ESO) guideline on endarterectomy and stenting for carotid artery stenosis

• A comparative effectiveness study of carotid intervention for long-term stroke prevention in patients with severe asymptomatic stenosis from a large integrated health system

• SVS Patient Safety Organization (PSO) TCAR Surveillance Project

• SVS Vascular Quality Initiative (VQI) & VQI TCAR Registry

• Important recommendations of the German-Austrian S3 guidelines on the management of extracranial carotid artery stenosis (Paper only available in German)

Hosts:

• Laurence Bertrand is a 5th-year vascular surgery resident at the Ludwig Maximilian University Hospitals of Munich, Germany. She is a medical graduate from KULeuven, Belgium, and has a Master of Science in International Health from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

• Ezra Schwartz (@EzraSchwartz10) is a medical graduate from McGill University pursuing a Master of Medical Science in Medical Education at Harvard Medical School. He is applying to integrated vascular residency programs this year.

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