Background: Throughout the history of cardiac surgery, neurological complications have become a significant matter of concern. The present study aimed to assess the predictors of neurological complications after cardiac surgery, analyze the pre-intra-post neurological risk factors, and provide possible recommendations regarding neurological complications after cardiac surgery.
Methods: A retrospective study was conducted for 266 patients who underwent cardiac surgery from 2014 to 2019 at the Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, King Fahad Hospital University, Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University, Saudi Arabia. Pre, intra, and postoperative data were collected and analyzed using a Statistical Package for Social Sciences. This study focused on and analyzed patients who developed significant neurological complications after cardiac surgery: seizure, hemiparesis, stroke, coma, cognitive dysfunction, transit ischemic attack, and blindness.
Results: Fifty out of 266 patients developed neurological complications after cardiac surgery. Twenty-five out of 50 patients were found to have major neurological complications. The mean age of the patients was 60, which varied from 22 to 90 years. Most of the patients were male (n = 37, 74%) compared to the female, who was 13 (26%). Saudi patients were higher in numbers (n = 40, 80%) compared to non-Saudi (n = 10, 20%). Seizure (7/50, 14%) was at the top of the major neurological complications, followed by hemiparesis (5/50, 10%).
Conclusion: This study identified that redoing the operation and hemiparesis (preoperatively), hemodynamic instability (intraoperatively), limb weakness (postoperatively) to be the most common predictors for developing neurological complications after cardiac surgery.
Key words: Cardiac surgery, predictors, neurological complications, outcomes.
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