Prevention of perioperative ischemic stroke after non-cardiac and non-neurosurgical operations in the light of the Scientific Statement and Guidelines for the Secondary Prevention of Ischemic Stroke and Transient Ischemic Attack AHA/ASA 2021 Part 1: Definition, risk factors, pathogenesis, prognosis, principles of pre- and intraoperative prevention

Abstract

Perioperative ischemic stroke is a potentially fatal complication that greatly increases the risk of poor outcome in surgical patients. Despite the relatively low prevalence among patients undergoing non-cardiosurgical and non-neurosurgical interventions (about 0.1–1.0 %), the total number of annually developing perioperative ischemic strokes in patients of this profile is high due to the large number of operations performed in the world. Since the publication in 2014 of the last fundamental work on the prevention of perioperative stroke, approaches to primary and secondary prevention, diagnosis, conservative and reperfusion treatment of ischemic stroke have been seriously modified. The numerous changes that have taken place have created the prerequisites for revising existing approaches to providing care for perioperative ischemic stroke. In 2021, updated documents of foreign researchers/ associations on the problem of perioperative ischemic stroke in non-cardiac and nonneurosurgical patients were published. This review, which consists of two parts, presents current data that summarizes the most relevant information on this topic. The first part of the review outlines the general provisions on perioperative ischemic stroke (definition, risk factors, pathogenesis, predictive models), strategies for pre- and intraoperative prevention.

Keywords

• perioperative stroke
• non-cardiac and non-neurological surgery
• perioperative complications
• preoperative preparation
• asymptomatic cerebral infarcts
• intraoperative prevention