[Cerebrovascular complications in cardiac surgery].

Mortality and physical impairment in patients undergoing cardiac surgery are to a large extent due to cerebro-vascular complications that are second in frequency only to cardiopulmonary incidents. In spite of the extracorporeal circulatory support as well as progress in cardiac surgery that have improved the perioperative conditions, neurologic complications mainly of embolic nature are still common after extracorporeal circulatory assistance.