Sex, diabetes, and stroke after carotid endarterectomy.

While diabetes is associated with increased risk of perioperative stroke among subjects who undergo carotid endarterectomy (1–3), women and minorities have been generally underrepresented in such trials (4). The North American Symptomatic Carotid Endarterectomy Trial (NASCET) was a randomized study of 2,885 eligible patients with carotid stenosis <70% who received either medical ( n = 1,449) or surgical therapy ( n = 1,436 patients) (3). The median study age was 66 years, and 93% of study subjects were white. Approximately 30% of NASCET subjects were female, and ∼22% had a history of diabetes, which was almost always type 2 diabetes (3). The …