News for healthcare staffing professionals: Routine screening for a narrowing of the neck arteries is not advised for healthy adults, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force said in a final recommendation statement.
The arteries that run along both sides of the neck deliver blood to the brain. If they become narrowed, inhibited blood flow can increase risk of a stroke. As you know, this is called carotid artery disease.
"Screening for carotid artery stenosis often leads to follow-up testing and surgeries that can cause serious harms, including stroke, heart attack, or death," task force member Dr. Jessica Herzstein said in a news release from the group. She elaborate that this type of blocked artery "is uncommon in the general adult population, so screening everyone would lead to many false-positive results."
A false-positive result is when a test shows that an individual has a condition he or she does not have. The procedures to test people for carotid artery disease can be potentially risky, and in an age of widely available medical testing, it is increasingly clear that more tests do not always mean better patient health, Dr. Abigail Chen, an internist at Mount Sinai Beth Israel, told HealthDay.
However, the new recommendation does not apply to adults with a history of a stroke, mini-stroke or symptoms of stroke. These people should get tested. The final recommendation was published in the online edition of the journal Annals of Internal Medicine.
Typically, carotid artery disease, also called carotid artery stenosis, is caused by the buildup of fatty substances and cholesterol deposits, called plaque. Like the arteries that deliver blood to the heart, the carotid arteries can develop atherosclerosis or the hardening of the arteries on the inside of the vessels.
Those on travel nurse jobs should remind patients who are smokers or maintain diets high in fat that the accumulation of fatty substances and cholesterol narrows these arteries, which limits blood flow to the brain and heightens the risk of stroke, sometimes called a "brain attack."
Risk factors for carotid artery disease
Carotid artery disease shares many risk factors of heart disease. They include:
- Age
- Smoking
- Abnormal lipids or high cholesterol
- Diet high in saturated fats
- Hypertension (high blood pressure) – this is the most important treatable risk factor for stroke
- Obesity
- Diabetes
- Sedentary lifestyle
- Family history of atherosclerosis, either coronary artery disease or carotid artery disease