Posterior Cerebral Artery and Cerebellar Infarctions

A 66 year old woman developed the abrupt of difficultly seeing to the left along with vertigo, nausea, vomting and a sensation of falling to the left.


Outline the Infarctions  

(Top) MRI Flair axial images; (Bottom) MRI Diffusion-weighted images. Note the acute infarctions in the left cerebellum and right occipital/medial temporal lobe. This is the picture is consistent with either 1) an embolus to the posterior circulation or 2) a left vertebral occlusion (resulting in the cerebellar strokes with a subsequent artery-to-artery embolus to the posterior cerebral artery. In this case, the etiology was found to be cardioembolic from a patent foramen ovale.


Revised04/24/06.
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