Introduction: The neurological complications of coronary artery surgery with cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) have been extensively studied, but to our knowledge those without CPB (NCPB) have not been defined.
Patients & methods: We prospectively examined 81 patients, before and up to seven days after surgery, to compare the neurological morbidity between patients subjected to coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) surgery with and without CPB. We analyzed demographic variables, risk factors and neurological examination including neuropsychological (NPS) tests using chi-square and non-parametric analysis (Mann-Whitney and Kruskal-Wallis).
Results: Forty-eight patients (34M; median age = 62 yrs; median number of grafts = 3 and median total surgery duration = 300 min) operated with CPB and 33 without CPB (23M; median age = 64 yrs; median number of grafts = 2 and median total surgery duration = 240 min) differed only in relation to number of grafts (p = 0.0001) and surgery duration (p = 0.0001).
Conclusion: We found no difference in early neurological outcome in patients subjected to CABG with or without CPB.