Atherosclerotic lesions of the thoracic aorta have recently been recognized as an important cause of stroke and peripheral embolization, which may result in severe neurologic damage as well as multiorgan failure and death. Their prevalence is approximately 27% in patients with previous embolic events. Transesophageal echocardiography is the modality of choice for the diagnosis of these atheroma...

Since tako-tsubo syndrome (TS) frequently appears soon after stroke (usually stroke involving the insular cortex), it is believed to be a consequence rather than a cause of stroke. Herein, we describe a 70-year-old woman presenting with a left middle cerebral artery stroke (involving the insular cortex) who developed a further contralateral ischemic stroke with concomitant detection of a transi...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Inference of etiology from lesion pattern in acute magnetic resonance imaging is valuable for management and prognosis of acute stroke patients. This study aims to assess the value of three-dimensional geometrical lesion-shape descriptors for stroke-subtype classification, specifically regarding stroke of cardioembolic origin. METHODS Stroke Etiology was classified acco...

Cardiac embolism accounts for an increasing proportion of ischemic strokes and might multiply several-fold during the next decades. However, research points to several potential strategies to stem this expected rise in cardioembolic stroke. First, although one-third of strokes are of unclear cause, it is increasingly accepted that many of these cryptogenic strokes arise from a distant embolism ...

Intracardiac blood cysts are thin-walled congenital cysts located in the endocardium and are seen predominantly in infants. They are rare in adults and are typically asymptomatic. However, complications such as valve dysfunction and left ventricular outflow tract obstruction have been reported in adults. We report a 42-year-old woman who developed an embolic stroke in association with intracard...

By studying 3,408 consecutive autopsied elderly patients, we found that two thirds of the 132 massive cerebral infarctions (86) were embolic, of cardiac origin. Embolic infarction associated with nonvalvular atrial fibrillation was seen in 48 cases (36%), half due to the first stroke. Embolic infarction associated with heart disease other than nonvalvular atrial fibrillation was seen in 23 case...

In 48 patients dying within 15 days following a supra-tentorial cerebral infarct, the presence of hemorrhagic infarction at autopsy was related to a cardiac embolic cause of the infarct, and to the cause of death. Hemorrhagic infarcts were more common among patients dying from brain herniation than among those dying from a non-cerebral cause. Cardiac embolic strokes were more often hemorrhagic ...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Sildenafil provides restorative therapeutic benefits in the treatment of experimental stroke. The majority of experimental studies on treatment of stroke have been performed in young animals; however, stroke is primarily a disease of the aged. Thus, using MRI, we evaluated the effects of sildenafil treatment of embolic stroke in aged animals. METHODS Aged male Wistar ra...

OBJECTIVE(S) It has been reported that ischemic postconditioning, conducted by a series of brief occlusion and release of the bilateral common carotid arteries, confers neuroprotection in permanent or transient models of stroke. However, consequences of postconditioning on embolic stroke have not yet been investigated. MATERIALS AND METHODS In the present study, rats were subjected to embolic...