BALTIMORE, May 20 (UPI) -- A U.S. study finds no evidence that bypass patients have a greater risk of long-term cognitive decline than patients not undergoing surgery.
Study leaders Ola A. Selnes and Guy M. McKhann of The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore say the study involved 152 patients who had bypass surgery and 92 patients with coronary artery disease who did not have surgical intervention.
Patients underwent a series of memory and other cognitive tests at the beginning of the study period, and after three, 12, 36 and 72 months. Of these, 96 bypass patients and 61 control patients completed cognitive testing after six years.
The study, published in the Annals of Neurology, showed there were no significant differences in cognitive scores between the two groups at the beginning of the study. Both groups showed modest decline in cognitive performance during the study period, but there were no significant differences in the degree of decline between the groups after six years.