A 84 year old woman who developed profound right hemiparesis ten days after falling and fracturing her right hip.

MRI Flair axial image: Note the bright signal involving both the superior and inferior divisions of the middle cerebral artery, but sparing the basal ganglia. This syndrome would commonly be caused by an embolus which blocks the distal middle cerebral artery stem (after the take-off the the lenticulostriate vessels).

Revised 04/23/06.
The Electronic Curriculum is copyrighted 1998,  Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine.