Atrial myxoma and posterior circulation stroke.

Abstract

While cardiac tumours are rare to begin with, most cardiac tumours are found to be secondary metastases and only a minority of cases are primary tumours. The most common primary cardiac tumours are myxomas. One of the rare causes of cardioembolic strokes is myxomas. A transthoracic echocardiography is an important diagnostic tool often done to exclude cardioembolic causes of stroke. The definitive treatment for cardiac myxoma is surgical resection. The majority of the myxoma-causing strokes involve the middle cerebral artery territory. We present a case of a patient with symptoms of posterior circulation stroke who had right-sided pontine and cerebellar infarct secondary to a left atrial myxoma. She had a successful surgical resection. This is a case report and a literature review on cardiac myxomas causing posterior circulation stroke.