Results
Over the period 165 patients suffered a stroke (1.99%), with an incidence ranging 0.85% for CABG to 8.14% for aortic surgery. The mean age was 70.3 years and 58.8% were male. 18% had experienced a previous stroke or TIA. Compared to the comparison group, patients experiencing post-operative stroke had a significantly prolonged period of ICU admission (8.0 vs 1.1 days p<0.001) and hospital length of stay (12.94 vs 8.0 days p<0.001). Patient survival was also inferior. In-hospital mortality was almost 3 times as high (17.0% vs 5.9%; p<0.001). Longer-term survival was also inferior on Kaplan-Meier estimation (p<0.001). The 1-year and 3-year survival were 61.5% and 53.8% respectively compared to 89.4% and 86.1% for the comparison group.