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Stroke, Vol 20, 465-472, Copyright © 1989 by American Heart Association

ARTICLES

The potential role for ultrafast cardiac computed tomography in patients with stroke

CM Helgason, E Chomka, E Louie, S Rich, E Zajac, E Roig, A Wilbur and BH Brundage
Department of Neurology, University of Illinois College of Medicine, Chicago.

We studied 40 patients with stroke of potential cardioembolic origin by cardiac ultrafast computed tomography and two-dimensional echocardiography. Cardiac ultrafast computed tomography was more sensitive (positive in eight of 14 instances) than two-dimensional echocardiography (positive in two of 14 instances) for the detection of intracardiac thrombus, which was found in 13 patients. Mitral anular calcification was diagnosed more often by two-dimensional echocardiography (four of five instances) than by cardiac ultrafast computed tomography (one of five instances); this implies a high incidence of false-positives for the former. Cardiac ultrafast computed tomography showed that one half of the patients (21 of 40) had coronary artery calcification, indicating a high incidence of coronary atheroma in this patient population. Future studies comparing brain and cardiac pathology with the findings of cardiac ultrafast computed tomography and patient prognosis are needed to define the significance and utility of this technique in patients with stroke.

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