Abstract
Objective: The aim of the study is to assess cognitive performance of patients treated by extra-intracranial (EC-IC) bypass surgery for cerebral ischemia. Methods: From November 2013 and October 2015 we neuropsychologically evaluated 11 patients demonstrating hemodynamic insufficiency following internal carotid artery occlusion . 9 of them completed neuropsychological testing before and 6 months after EC-IC bypass.
We compared RBANS Index Scores and Verbal fluency scores before and after intervention. All patients underwent standard preoperative neurological and radiological evaluation.
Results: In our preliminary results we found improvement after EC-IC bypass in following domains: Immediate memory (p = .012), Visuospatial/Constructional (p = .028), Language (p = .018), Delayed Memory (p = .036), Total Scale (p = .008) and Verbal Fluency Test (p = .028). Conclusions: Many patients indicated for EC-IC bypass due to ICA occlusion and hemodynamic insufficiency, are affected by significant cognitive impairment.
In accordance with other scientific studies neuropsychological performance can significantly improve after EC-IC bypass surgery.