Abstract

We report a 78-year-old female who presented to the Emergency department after a 10-minute episode of transient ischemic attack (TIA)-like symptoms of right side sensorimotor deficit, presumably due to a left carotid artery ischemia syndrome, only to be found surprisingly to have bilateral multifocal acute infarcts of cardioembolic pattern by brain magnetic resonance imaging, and, even more surprisingly, to have a rare, but curable embolic source from a large left atrial myxoma. This case report emphasizes the importance of following existing guidelines to timely and thoroughly investigate the potential management-changing causes for all TIA patients. Rare but curable causes of stroke or TIA in young adults such as cardiac myxoma can also occur in the elderly patient population.

Keywords

transient ischemic attack; ischemic stroke; myxoma; cardiac tumor; echocardiography