Introduction Stroke incurs ischemic or hemorrhagic injury in the brain, typically associated with alterations in the cerebral circulation, including a variety of disorders that affect arteries, capillaries, and venous components. Imaging provides detailed information on brain tissue and vascular anatomy…
Abbreviations AF atrial fibrillation ASA atrial septal aneurysm INR international normalized ratio LA left atrium, left atrial LAA left atrial appendage LV left ventricle, left ventricular MAC mitral annular calcification MRI magnetic resonance imaging PFO patent foramen ovale TTE transthoracic…
Identifying the etiology of ischemic stroke is critical to providing optimum therapy and preventing future events. Unfortunately, it is not always a simple task to establish the source, which all too often results in the diagnosis of “cryptogenic” stroke. Since…
Information Used for Stroke Diagnosis Clinicians must first decide on the key questions to be asked. Answers are difficult unless the questions are clearly framed. In neurology, two diagnostic questions always require an answer: (1) what is the disease mechanism—the…
Background Cardiac surgery has undergone a rapid and extraordinary development since mid-1940s. Many operations that were once considered experimental are now commonplace, with thousands of open heart procedures performed annually in the United States. At present, an estimated 1 million…
Introduction Infections are common complications in the acute phase after stroke affecting about one-third of all patients with stroke . The most frequent poststroke infections are urinary tract infections and stroke-associated pneumonia (SAP), the latter showing consistent association with poor…
Introduction There is an elevated risk of ischemic stroke in human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-infected compared to HIV-uninfected individuals, independent of age and traditional vascular risk factors. In individuals with untreated HIV infection, the odds of an ischemic stroke are more…
Neurological complications may occur as sequelae of systemic infection, but can be a presenting feature with certain pathogens. An association exists between ischemic strokes and infection, with a number of proposed mechanisms by which vascular disease develops into central nervous…
Introduction The acronym CADASIL (Cerebral Autosomal Dominant Arteriopathy with Subcortical Infarcts and Leukoencephalopathy) is for an autosomal dominant inherited cerebral small-vessel disease responsible in adults for subcortical infarcts and leukoencephalopathy . Mutations in NOTCH3 gene on chromosome 19 are responsible…
Introduction About one-quarter of patients admitted to specialist stroke units will be discharged with a diagnosis other than stroke; these patients are commonly referred to as stroke mimics . Functional neurological disorder (FND) is one of the commonest causes of…