Race, sex and occlusive cerebrovascular disease: a review.

IDEALLY, treatment of a patient with cerebral ischemia should be guided by knowledge of the nature, location, and severity of the occlusive disease within the extracranial and intracranial vessels.' To plan efficient evaluation of the individual patient, the responsible clinician must be familiar with the relative probability of finding occlusive lesions at various sites within the vascular tree since individual imaging and non-invasive tests have different capabilities with regard to various vascular loci. A growing body of data suggests that there are important differences in the distribution of occlusive vascular disease in Blacks and Whites and in men and women. This review summarizes the presently available data.