Finsterer · Minerva medica 2016 · narrative review · n=?

Neurological complications of cardiac disease (heart brain disorders).

Cited 13 times in the scientific literature.

Level 5 - mechanism / opinion, no new human data

Narrative review summarizing existing literature without systematic review methodology.

PubMed 26763655 · record verified 2026-08-28

What was done

The authors conducted a literature search in conventional databases to summarize and review available data on neurological complications associated with cardiac disease.

What was found

The abstract reports no numerical findings or statistics. Qualitatively, it highlights frequent complications (embolic stroke, syncope, intracerebral bleeding) and rare complications (watershed infarction, brain abscess, meningitis, metastasis, dementia, aneurysm formation). It identifies thromboembolism and low-output hypoperfusion as primary mechanisms, driven by structural abnormalities, systolic dysfunction, valvular pathology, and arrhythmias such as atrial fibrillation.

Why it matters

It emphasizes the clinical intersection of cardiology and neurology, outlining why heart-brain disorders require coordinated cross-disciplinary evaluation and management.

Limits

This is a narrative review with no systematic search methodology, quality assessment, or quantitative pooling. No sample sizes, patient counts, or numerical risk estimates are provided in the abstract.

Cited by