On our latest publication, published in Anesthesiology journal, we assessed the relationship between neurofilament light plasma concentrations and cognitive decline in the baseline and up to one year after cardiac surgery.
It has been noticed in clinical settings that patients with coronary artery disease are at risk for neuropsychological decline.
Moreover, postoperative increases in neurofilament light concentration in blood, a marker of neuronal injury, have been associated with delirium after noncardiac surgery before.
In our observational study of 167 cardiac surgery patients nested within a randomized controlled study of blood pressure management, higher baseline neurofilament light concentration in blood was found to be associated with worse baseline cognition, but improvement in cognition at one year post-surgery.
Higher baseline neurofilament light concentration in blood was associated with worse baseline cognition, but improvement in cognition at one year post-surgery.
Furthermore, an increase in neurofilament light plasma concentrations on postoperative day 1 was found to be associated with a greater decline in cognition at one year.
Peripheral concentration of neurofilament light increases after cardiac surgery and is associated with a greater cognitive decline at 1 yr but not 1 month after cardiac surgery.
Although these results should be considered hypothesis-generating and need to be validated in future studies, neurofilament light concentrations may provide insight into postoperative change in cognition after cardiac surgery.
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