Posterior Cerebral Artery Infarction

A 60 year old woman developed the abrupt onset of difficulty seeing to the left following a traumatic placement of a central line in the right subclavian vein.


Outline the Infarction

MRI - Flair image - Note the high signal in the distribution of the right posterior cerebral artery. Looking closely, there is a small infarct in the right, posterior thalamus. Small perforators from the proximal PCA supply the thalamus. In this case, the infarct was most likely caused from an embolus from the subclavian artery.


Revised04/23/06.
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