The Research Progress Of Relations Between The Carotid Artery Stenosis And Mild Cognitive Impairment

Objective:our study using Digital Subtraction Angiography (DSA) and CT Angiography (CTA) to assess grading of carotid artery stenosis to explore the relationship between the degree and position of carotid stenosis and mild cognitive dysfunction in patients.Methods:Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), Montreal Scale (MoCA), Clinical Dementia Scale (CDR), Daily Living Scale (ADL), and the Hamilton Depression Scale (HAMD), Hamilton Anxiety Scale (HAMA) and other neuropsychological scales were used to estimate the cognitive function of168cases of patients with carotid artery stenosis or occlusion (stenosis group) and79patients without carotid stenosis (control group) which were confirmed by DSA or CTA. DSA and CTA were used to assess the grading of carotid artery stenosis of all subjects based on North American Symptomatic Carotid Endarterectomy Trial (NASCET), divided into mild stenosis (stenosis rate<30%), moderate stenosis (stenosis rate30%～69%), severe stenosis and occlusion (stenosis rate70%～100%), we perform a study to analysis the correlation of the neuropsychological test scores with the vascular grading assessment. Results:The comprehensive cognitive scores of stenosis patients were lower than control group’s. Comprehensive cognitive assessment results were significant differences (p<0.05) between stenosis patients and patients without stenosis. When compared to control group, The comprehensive cognitive scores statistically decreased (p<0.05) in carotid artery moderate and severe stenosis patients, while mild stenosis patients was lower than control group, the difference has no statistically significance (p>0.05). While mild to moderate carotid stenosis group stenosis group, the group with moderate to severe carotid stenosis of carotid stenosis group, The comprehensive cognitive scores low compared to the previous group, there was significant difference (p<0.05).The attention, calculation and language fluency scores of left carotid artery stenosis patients were significantly lower than the control group patients. The clock drawing and delayed recall test scores of right carotid artery stenosis patients were statistically lower than the comtrol group patients (P<0.05).Conclusions:1. Moderate-severe carotid artery stenosis had obvious correlation with mild cognitive impairments. With the increase of carotid stenosis, cognitive impairment aggravated gradually.2. Computing and language ability were impaired obviously in patients with moderate-severe stenosis of left carotid artery, executive function, visual space structure and delayed recall were impaired obviously in patients with moderate-severe stenosis of right carotid artery.