Spontaneous Recanalization of a Post-operative Acute Internal Carotid Artery Occlusion

Spontaneous recanalization (SR) of an internal carotid artery (ICA) is a rare phenomenon. Cases reported in literature described the evolution of dissection or atherothrombotic / cardioembolic acute occlusions. No case of post-endarterectomy ICA occlusion resolved by SR has never been reported. Herein, we describe the case of a 64-year old male patient who presented an ipsilateral ischemic stroke due to the ICA occlusion in the second post-operative day of a carotid endarterectomy (CEA) and SR 6 months later, without anticoagulant therapy administration. The aim of this report was to increase awareness of this unusual entity and to highlight the usefulness of duplex ultrasound (DUS) surveillance of ICA eventual postoperative occlusions in order to detect accidental recanalization and to propose an adjunctive treatment whenever needed.