Patients undergoing coronary artery bypass grafting are at higher risk of neurologic events than demographi cally similar patients undergoing noncardiac surgery. Postoperative stroke has been shown to occur two to three times more frequently than in age-, gender-, and education-matched patients undergoing noncardiac vas cular or thoracic surgery. The incidence of more subtle brain syndromes, giving rise to symptoms of memory loss and cognitive deterioration as documented in up to 79% of coronary bypass patients, varies depending on whether prospective or retrospective data are analyzed, and whether or not serial cognitive testing is used, and is also significantly higher in coronary bypass patients. Various factors have been identified as causative in the genesis of perioperative neurologic injury in these pa tients. Although there is evidence that microgaseous and microparticulate emboli are instrumental in the production of postoperative cognitive impairment, the role of ascending aortic atherosclerosis is increasingly recognized as being the greatest single risk factor for postoperative stroke.
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