Results Significantly more patients were found to have neuropsychological deficits in the group without the arterial line filter at both 8 days (P<.05) and 8 weeks (P<.03) after surgery. In addition, more "soft" neurological signs were found in the nonfiltered group 24 hours after surgery (P<.05). More high-intensity transcranial signals were found in the nonfiltered group, and the number of high-intensity transcranial signals was found to be related to the likelihood of a patient having a neuropsychological deficit at 8 weeks.Conclusions These data suggest that neuropsychological deficits after routine cardiopulmonary bypass are related to the number of microemboli delivered during surgery. Furthermore, the numbers of microemboli may be reduced by including a 40-^m filter on the arterial line. (Stroke. 1994;25:1393-1399

This project was funded by the NIHR Health Technology Assessment programme and will be published in full in Health Technology Assessment; Vol. 16, No. 39. See the HTA programme website for further project information.

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