title: Diagnostic dilemmas in a patient with multivascular embolic stroke.
abstract: We describe a patient admitted to the intensive care unit with aphasia, which was due to an embolic ischaemic cerebral stroke associated with a previously unknown patent foramen ovale. Eventually, this finding during echocardiography led us to the diagnosis of pancreatic cancer. The thrombotic complications of pancreatic cancer, in combination with a large, patent foramen ovale, support the mechanism of a paradoxical embolism through the patent foramen ovale as the cause of cerebral ischaemic stroke.
authors.affiliation: ICU, VieCuri Medical Centre, PO Box 1926, 5900 BX, Venlo, The Netherlands, Corinne.Delsing@radboudumc.nl.
authors.forename: C P A
authors.initials: CP
authors.lastname: Delsing
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: van Duijnhoven
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Arnoldussen
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: le Noble