Background and Purpose-Cardiac surgery carries a high risk of neurological complications; therefore, these patients would be an appropriate target population for neuroprotective strategies. In this study, we evaluated postoperative diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) as a potential surrogate marker for brain embolism and its relationship to neurobiochemical markers of brain injury. Methods-Of a total of 45 consecutive patients undergoing aortic valve replacement, 37 completed preoperative and postoperative MRI. At the time of the MRI studies, serum S100 and neuron-specific enolase concentrations were determined. Preexisting T2 and postoperative DWI lesion volumes were quantified. All patients had a blinded neurological examination before and after operation. Results-New perioperative DWI lesions were present in 14 patients (38%), of whom only 3 developed focal neurological deficits. Eighteen small lesions were found in the white matter or vascular border zones in all but 2 patients with territorial stroke. The appearance of new DWI lesions correlated with age, pre-existing T2 lesion volume, and postoperative S100 concentrations on days 2 to 4 after surgery. In a forward stepwise canonical discrimination model, only T2 lesion volume was selected as a relevant variable.
Conclusions-The