title: Altered Mental Status in a Child With an Unwitnessed Fall: A Case Report.
abstract: We report a case of altered mental status in a 5-year-old boy who presented to the emergency department after presumed head trauma. A computed tomography head was conducted and its findings were normal, and the boy was discharged home. He returned the next day with persistent altered mental status and was found to have an abnormal MR brain suggestive of embolic strokes. An echocardiogram revealed a large atrial mass that was later confirmed by pathology to be an atrial myxoma. This is a unique and, to our knowledge, unreported presentation of a known but rare disease process in a pediatric patient.
authors.affiliation: From the *UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital, Oakland; †Kaiser Permanente, San Francisco Medical Center; and ‡University of California at San Francisco; San Francisco, CA.
authors.forename: Michelle R
authors.initials: MR
authors.lastname: Fleurat
authors.forename: Brita E
authors.initials: BE
authors.lastname: Zaia
mesh_terms: D000058:Accidental Falls; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003937:Diagnosis, Differential; D004452:Echocardiography; D006325:Heart Atria / Q000473:pathology* / Q000601:surgery; D006338:Heart Neoplasms / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000601:surgery; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D008609:Mental Status Schedule; D009232:Myxoma / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000601:surgery; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed