title: Acute pediatric stroke-what's the hurry? A case for emergency physician-performed echocardiography.
abstract: Acute ischemic stroke in a pediatric population is uncommon and has a different etiology from the adult population. We describe a case of acute ischemic stroke for which emergent, physician-sonographer–performed transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) changed his outcome.The patient in this case presented with left-sided hemiparesis,with subsequent CT Angiography (CTA) imaging and follow-on neurosurgical embolectomy for a proximal middle cerebral artery occlusion after which showed early recovery of muscular deficit. The cause ultimately was from an atrialmyxoma that was identified early by emergency physician-performed TTE and led to early resection possibly preventing recurrence of stroke.
authors.affiliation: Department of Emergency Medicine, Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia, PA; Department of Emergency Medicine, Virginia Commonwealth University Health System, Richmond, VA.
authors.forename: Christopher D
authors.initials: CD
authors.lastname: Thom
authors.affiliation: Department of Emergency Medicine, Virginia Commonwealth University Health System, Richmond, VA; Department of Emergency Medicine, Emergency Ultrasound Section, St. Luke's University Health Network, Bethlehem, PA. Electronic address: scott.sparks@sluhn.org.
authors.forename: Scott E
authors.initials: SE
authors.lastname: Sparks
mesh_terms: D002648:Child; D003937:Diagnosis, Differential; D004452:Echocardiography; D006338:Heart Neoplasms / Q000150:complications / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000601:surgery*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D020768:Middle Cerebral Artery / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging; D009232:Myxoma / Q000150:complications / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000601:surgery*; D020521:Stroke / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000209:etiology*; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed