Personalized Blood Pressure Management During Cardiac Surgery With Cerebral Autoregulation Monitoring: A Randomized Trial

The purpose of this study was to determine if setting mean arterial pressure (MAP) targets during cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB) based on individualized cerebral autoregulation data reduces the frequency of neurological complications compared with usual care. Patients (n = 460) ≥ 55 years old at risk for neurological complications were randomized to have MAP targets during CPB to be above the lower limit of transcranial Doppler determined cerebral autoregulation versus usual institutional practices. The primary outcome was the frequency of the composite endpoint of clinical stroke, or new brain magnetic resonance imaging-detected ischemic injury, or cognitive decline 4–6 weeks after surgery from baseline. Secondary outcomes were components of the primary composite outcome and clinically detected delirium. Complete outcome data were available from 194 patients (stroke assessments, n = 460; magnetic resonance imaging data, n = 164; cognitive data n = 336). There was no difference between groups in the frequency of the composite neurological end-point or its components (P = 0.752). Compared with the usual care there was a 45% reduction in the frequency of clinically detected delirium in the autoregulation group (8.2% vs 14.9%, risk ratio = 0.55, 95% confidence interval = 0.32, 0.93, P = 0.035) and improved performance on test of memory 4–6 weeks after surgery from baseline (P = 0.019). Basing MAP during CPB on cerebral autoregulation monitoring did not reduce the frequency of the primary neurological outcome in high-risk patients compared with usual care but it was associated with a reduction in the frequency of delirium and better performance on tests of memory 4–6 weeks after surgery.