Outcome differences between carotid artery stenting (CAS) and carotid endarterectomy (CEA) in postoperative ventricular arrhythmia, neurological complications, and in-hospital mortality.

Objective: We study whether the carotid artery stenting (CAS) and carotid endarterectomy (CEA) differ from each other in postoperative ventricular arrhythmia, along with neurological complications (perioperative stroke and transient ischemic attack), in-hospital mortality, and estimated medical cost. Methods: This study used data of patients with carotid artery stenosis from the National Inpatient Sample (NIS) database (2011-2014) from the United States of America. Based on the procedure that patients received, individuals were categorized into groups of CAS and CEA. Multilevel analyses were conducted to examine the difference in the following outcomes: postoperative ventricular arrhythmia, neurological complications, in-hospital mortality, and medical costs between CAS and CEA. The patient age, gender, race, Charlson Comorbidity Index, primary payer, emergency department service record, bed size of hospital, region of the hospital, and location of the hospital were adjusted in each model. In addition, preexisting cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) were adjusted for when predicting postoperative ventricular arrhythmia; postoperative CVDs were adjusted for in the model of in-hospital mortality. Results: A total of 127,321 carotid artery stenosis hospitalizations were included in our analyses (n = 17,074 in CAS, n = 110,247 in CEA). Multivariate logistic regressions showed that compared with patients underwent CAS, those with CEA had a lower odds of postoperative ventricular arrhythmia (odds ratio [OR] = 0.81, 95% confidence interval [CI]: [0.66-0.98]), less neurological complications (OR = 0.55, 95% CI: [0.51-0.59] in general; OR = 0.63, 95% CI: [0.57-0.69] in ischemic stroke; OR = 0.26, 95% CI: [0.20-0.32] in hemorrhagic stroke; and OR = 0.58, 95% CI: [0.47-0.71] in transient ischemic attack), and in-hospital mortality (OR = 0.52, 95% CI: [0.42-0.64]). Generalized linear model indicated patients undergoing CEA had lower medical cost (β = -4329.99, 95% CI: [-4552.61, -4107.38]) than patients undergoing CAS. Conclusions: In short-term outcomes, CEA was associated with a lower risk of postoperative ventricular arrhythmia, neurological complications, in-hospital mortality, and lower cost as compared with CAS.