ORIGINAL ARTICLE Risk factors of neurological complications in cardiac surgery

A b s t r a c t Background: Postoperative complications are integral to cardiac surgery. The most serious ones are stroke, which develops in about 7.5 % of the patients, and postoperative encephalopathy, which affects 10–30 % of the patients. According to biblio-graphical data, the number of complications is increasing. Aim: To analyse the risk factors and the types of neurological complications in patients undergoing heart surgery. Methods: We assessed retrospectively 323 consecutive patients undergoing surgery at the Department of Cardiac Surgery