Around 5 percent of the patients submitted to heart surgery with extracorporeal circulation present neurological problems. In relation to neuropsicological functions the alteration rate achieve 50 to 70%. An independent variable to stroke is age, the frequency in patients older then 75 years is close to 9%. Taking in account that rate of the elderly population grows very fast and that the coronary patient are frequently older than 65 years, we found very important to search for prophylactic ways to reduce this incidence. New drugs promise to achieve the goal of a prophylaxis of the cerebral injury induced by extracorporeal circulation and nimodipine, a neurovascular specific calcium channel blocker, seems to be a great promise for the prevention of cerebral damage. This is a pilot, double blind, randomized and controlling study with 64 patients, 30 in the nimodipine group and 34 in the placebo branch. Demographics and preoperative data were similar, without any significative difference but the incidence of previous transitory ischaemic attack. The nimodipine group shows a reduction in the number of neurological events in comparation with the placebo group, although a most complicated surgical procedure and inter and post-operative evolution. In the nimodipine group 3 patients presented mental confusion but in the placebo branch we found also 3 cases of mental confusion plus 2 cases of drowsy and one ischaemic stroke with sequels. In summary in the nimodipine group were 3 cases in 30 patients (10%) against 6 in 34 patients (17.64%) in one placebo group. It means a neurological events reduction of 76.4%. Legault reported high mortality in patients using nimodipine in cardiac valve replacement surgery, mainly related to bleeding. We don't found such correlation. The hospital - mortality was similiar in both groups (1 patient in each group) and non statistically significant difference in bleeding (1 severe case in the nimodipine group). In the follow up till 41 months there was a higher mortality in the placebo (4 patients) than in the nimodipine group (1 case).
Myocardial revascularization; Cerebral ischemia; Confusion; Nimodipine; Nimodipine; Myocardial revacularizatton; Extracorporeal circulation; Double-blind method