RT Journal
A1 Sabik JF, Blackstone EH
T1 STroke after coronary artery bypass graft surgery—reply
JF JAMA
JO JAMA
YR 2011
FD June 1
VO 305
IS 21
SP 2171
OP 2172
DO 10.1001/jama.2011.708
UL http://dx.doi.org/10.1001/jama.2011.708
AB 
In Reply: As Dr Fan and colleagues discuss, and we stated as a limitation of our study, we did not report whether the perioperative strokes were due to embolism, thrombosis, hemorrhage, or hypoperfusion. These data are not routinely captured in our prospective database and therefore would require considerable work to obtain. However, from what is known about stroke and coronary surgery, the majority are due to embolism, most likely from manipulation of an atherosclerotic ascending aorta.1 Our findings support this in that stroke increased directly with the number of atherosclerotic risk factors and was lowest for patients with minimal manipulation of the aorta.