Assessment of long-term cognitive impairment after off-pump coronary-artery bypass grafting and related risk factors.

OBJECTIVES To assess cognitive impairment after off-pump coronary-artery bypass grafting, with a particular emphasis on long-term follow-up and related risk factors. DESIGN Prospective study. SETTING Virgen de la Victoria University Hospital, Málaga, Spain. PARTICIPANTS Participants were 36 patients undergoing off-pump coronary-artery bypass grafting. MEASUREMENTS Changes in the neuropsychological test battery administered from before to after surgery (1, 6, and 12 months). Postoperative cognitive impairment was defined by a significant decrease. RESULTS A significantly multidomain (attention-executive functions, P < .01; immediate and delayed memory, P < .001; and verbal fluency, P < .05) postoperative cognitive impairment was shown, being maximum at 6 months (more than 50% of patients) and still presented at 12 months (more than 30% of patients), but partially recovered. Related risk factors as smoking (P < .01), diabetes mellitus (P < .01), peripheral arteriopathy (P < .01), obesity (P < .05), lower hematocrit (P < .01), and hemoglobin (P < .05) levels and diastolic blood pressure (P < .05) were identified as predictors of cognitive impairment. Better New York Heart Association class (P < .01) and less severity of angina (P < .01) were associated with partial postoperative recovering. CONCLUSION A multidomain long-term postoperative cognitive impairment and a partial neurocognitive recovering were detected after off-pump coronary-artery bypass grafting and were associated with several nonspecific surgery factors. These findings may be useful when counseling patients before surgery and suggest the importance of long-term neurocognitive evaluation.