Peri-Procedural Silent and Clinical Infarctions in Cardiovascular Procedures
Gurmeen Kaur, MBBS
@kaurgurmeen
Cardiovascular procedures including Aortic Valve Replacement (AVR), coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG), and cardiac and cerebral catheterization have been associated with increased prevalence of peri-procedural acute ischemic brain lesions on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).
In this systematic review, Cho et al compared the ratio of radiographic brain infarcts (RBI) to strokes and transient ischemic attacks across cardiac and vascular procedures. RBIs are common after invasive vascular procedures and are encountered a lot more frequently than clinical strokes or TIAs. Literature suggests that peri-procedural ischemic events might serve as a potential surrogate marker for optimizing invasive procedures, which is why an effort was made to compare the rates of RBIs to clinical events.