Monitoring the brain before, during, and after cardiac surgery to improve long-term neurodevelopmental outcomes

Innovation in surgical and medical management of cardiac disease has generated a dramatic improvement in operative survival. Along with these favourable results in terms of survival is the heightened awareness of neurologic complications, which often become evident beyond the early postoperative period. A large, multicentre prospective study found serious neurologic injury occurs in about one-twentieth of patients after myocardial revascularization in adults.1 More subtle evidence of persistent cognitive decline and functional impairment has been shown to occur in over two-fifths of such patients.2 Acute neurologic abnormalities are reported in up to one-fifth of infants and children who undergo cardiac surgery.3-6 Lasting impairments in cognitive, motor, and expressive functioning have been reported in up to three-fifths of children who have undergone complex cardiac surgery during infancy.7 Specifically, gross and fine motor delays, visual-spatial problems, language deficits and long-term emotional and behavioural problems have been found.8-13 © 2006 Cambridge University Press.