Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
Pivot Concepts:   Target Concepts:
Query: UMLS:C0038454 (stroke)
 147,016 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

When a brain scan is abnormal, one can often describe the abnormality in terms of its location, shape, sharpness, brightness, and other descriptive parameters. Certain types of abnormality have been linked to certain specific diagnoses: for example, a crescent-shaped lesion would suggest subdural hematoma to many people, a wedge-shaped lesion would suggest cerebral vascular accident, etc. Some features thought to be characteristic of certain diseases are actually quite nonspecific. For example, the "doughnut" sign--at first believed to be characteristic of brain abscess--has also been found in primary and metastatic tumors, CVA, and subdural hematoma. The "crescent" sign that was at first thought to be specific for subdural hematoma occurs also in meningitis, scalp or skull trauma, meningioma en plaque, etc. Some features of abnormalities are highly specific for certain diseases; e.g., wedge- or flame-shaped lesions are rarely seen with disorders other than CVA, and lesions in the midline or in the posterior fossa are almost invariably tumors. This article reviews the features of abnormalities on brain scans that in the literature have been reportedly associated with specific types of disease and explores the strength and validity of the associations.
 ...
PMID:The abnormal brain scan: specificity of descriptive parameters. 17 59

(1) Neurologic complications remain a significant problem in bacterial endocarditis. Of 218 patients with endocarditis, 84 (39%) had a neurologic complication and 58% of these 84 patients died. In contrast, the mortality rate was only 20% among those endocarditis patients without neurologic complications. (2) Of the neurologic complications, cerebral embolism is the most frequent and important. An embolic stroke occurred in 37 (17%) of our patients, with 30 of these patients dying. Emboli are important not only in terms of the direct morbidity and mortality they cause via cerebral infarction, but also because of their role in the causation of mycotic aneurysms, brain abscesses, and abnormal CSF formulae. (3) Cerebral emboli are particularly common in patients with mitral valve infection, and in patients with infection due to virulent organisms, particularly S. aureus and enteric gram-negative bacilli. (4) Mycotic aneurysms occur more frequently in the course of acute endocarditis rather than late in the course of subacute disease. Management of angiographically demonstrated mycotic aneurysms is dependent upon the presence or absence of hemorrhage, the anatomic location of the aneurysm, and the clinical course of the patient. Healing of mycotic aneurysms can occur during the course of effective antimicrobial therapy, thus obviating the need for neurosurgical intervention in all such patients. (5) Macroscopic brain abscess is a rare complication of bacterial endocarditis. Miliary microscopic abscesses are more common than larger abscesses, particularly in patients with acute disease and miliary infection in other organs of the body. (6) Focal seizures occur most commonly in endocarditis patients with acute embolic disease; generalized seizures are of diverse etiologies, with metabolic factors being most important. Penicillin neurotoxicity should be considered in patients with impaired renal function who are receiving high dose penicillin. (7) With the exception of hemorrhagic complications, lumbar puncture results tend to reflect the nature of the infecting organism rather than the nature of the neurologic complication. Endocarditis due to virulent organisms such as S. aureus is usually associated with a purulent CSF formula while nonvirulent organisms, such as viridans streptococci, susually have aseptic or normal CSF formulae.
 ...
PMID:Neurologic complications of bacterial endocarditis. 58 Jul 94

Nine cases have been presented in detail to illustrate some of the varied causes of sudden neurological deficit in childhood: arteriovenous malformation, cryptic hamartoma, berry aneurysm, mycotic aneurysm, intraspinal arteriovenous malformation, brain tumor, migraine, arteritis, and multiple sclerosis. The Boston Children's Hospital experience with aneurysms and intracranial arteriovenous malformation has been summarized. It is noteworthy that a cutaneous hemangioma overlay one cranial and one intraspinal arteriovenous malformation. One small but deep cerebral arteriovenous malformation apparently destroyed itself after its second hemorrhage. Not only have multiple sclerosis and a brain tumor mimicked a vascular lesion, but a series of vascular accidents was misdiagnosed first as multiple sclerosis then as a thalamic tumor. The many possible causes of childhood strokes has been thoroughly cataloged in the Report of the Joint Committee for Stroke Facilities in 1973 (11). Children may be more susceptible to strokes because of congenital abnormalities such as congenital heart disease, hemophilia, and sickle cell anemia, or by diseases which more commonly occur in this age group, such as leukemia. The likelihood of brain abscess in cyanotic congenital heart disease is stressed. Arteriographic studies in our series have been safe; however, there have been reports of probable worsening of symptoms in children with multiple cerebral occlusive lesions in the presence of homocystinuria.
 ...
PMID:Strokes in children. 98 45

The cerebral sequential scintigraphy enables a process to be described according to its hemodynamics (Stage I), its degree of vascularization (Stage II), and the extent of the localized disturbance of the blood-brain barrier function (Stage III). For a given lesion, typical scintigraphic behaviour patterns can be described. This report presents the results of a prospective series with 1722 patients examined using this method. The accuracy of the different scintigraphic diagnoses, according to tumor type, was: cerebrovascular accident with brain infarction - 92% (= CVA), metastasis - 90%, bone or meningital process - 89%, malignant glioma - 91%, meningioma - 74%, highly differentiated glioma - 67%, chronic subdural hematoma - 54%, A-V angioma - 54%, brain abscess - 45%. The differential diagnosis between brain tumor and CVA with infarction was possible in approximately 97% of the patients, the differential diagnosis of intracranial space-occupying lesion versus CVA with infarction in approximately 95%. There were 14 false positive results recorded (0.8% of the 1722 patients).
 ...
PMID:[Reliability of positive findings in serial cerebral scintigraphy. Evaluation of a prospective series of 1700 cases]. 117 13

Neurologic syndromes often complicate the management of infective endocarditis (IE). We retrospectively reviewed 166 episodes of native valve endocarditis to assess the occurrence and implications of nonfocal encephalopathy, meningitis, salient headache, back pain, and brain abscess. Neurologic complications occurred in 35% (58/166) of patients: 41% (54/133) of mitral or aortic valve IE and 12% (4/33) of tricuspid valve IE. Of 133 cases of mitral or aortic valve IE, encephalopathy occurred in 14%, meningitis in 5%, and salient headache in 3%. All neurologic complications occurred more often with Staphylococcus aureus infection (67%) than with viridans streptococci (22%), including encephalopathy (22% versus 7%), meningitis (17% versus 0%), stroke (39% versus 16%), and death (39% versus 9%). Encephalopathy was associated with virulent organisms, increased patient age, and uncontrolled infection. Clinical, radiologic, and neuropathologic data all suggest that infective microemboli are often etiologic in IE-related encephalopathy. There were no macroscopic brain abscesses clinically identified. Meningitis occurred only with virulent organisms. While many clinical aspects of IE have changed in recent years, the frequency and gravity of neurologic complications have not.
 ...
PMID:Neurologic complications of infective endocarditis. 182 93

The occurrence of central nervous system (CNS) complications was studied retrospectively in 150 patients with bacteremia caused by Staphylococcus aureus, Streptococcus pneumoniae, beta-hemolytic streptococci or Escherichia coli. The incidence and clinical manifestations of different CNS complications were noted during 1 month after the bacteremia. Special attention was paid to vascular complications (infarction or hemorrhage), infections (meningitis or brain abscess) and mental changes when they were the only signs of CNS origin (lowered level of consciousness, confusion or delirium). The risk of cerebral infarction was elevated in the patients with bacteremia during the first month after the positive blood culture as compared with the overall risk of stroke in the general population. 10/150 patients (7%) developed cerebral infarction during that month. Two of these cases were associated with bacterial meningitis and 1 with endocarditis. Mental changes as a main symptom of CNS origin occurred in 27% of patients with bacteremia. Increasing patient age predisposed to this complication. Mental changes were not associated with any bacterial species studied. Altogether 40% of the patients developed CNS complications, which were a significant risk factor for death during the first month after the bacteremia.
 ...
PMID:Central nervous system complications in patients with bacteremia. 266 96

The nervous system is frequently involved in patients with infective endocarditis. When a careful review of presenting complaints is undertaken, neurological symptoms have been found in as high as 29% of patients. Because these manifestations may be so protean in nature, for example, stroke or transient ischaemic attack (the most common), toxic encephalopathy, meningitis, brain abscess, visual loss, seizures, headache, backache, or acute mononeuropathy, the neurologist needs to consider infective endocarditis as a possible diagnosis in many patients. During the past two decades, infective endocarditis has occurred in an ever widening clinical setting. It may often be found in persons unknown to have predisposing cardiac disease. This is particularly true in certain subsets of the population, including the elderly, patients subjected to various invasive procedures leading to nosocomial infection, and drug abusers. New diagnostic studies, including refined bacteriological culture techniques, echocardiography, computed tomography, magnetic resonance imaging, and greater availability of skillful cerebral angiography, make earlier diagnosis of infective endocarditis possible. Despite this, patients with neurological complications continue to have an uncertain prognosis.
 ...
PMID:Neurological manifestations of infective endocarditis. Review of clinical and therapeutic challenges. 267 68

During the first 4 years of the CV unit the mortality rate among 464 patients was 5.2 per cent. The records of the 24 fatalities were reviewed. In the 10 patients submitted to autopsy the clinician's opinion of the cause of death was confirmed in 6 cases. In 4 cases autopsy revealed brain abscess, pulmonary embolism, acute myocardial infarction and pneumonia, respectively. Other significant findings not registered clinically were made in 4 cases. Twenty-three patients underwent a cerebral CT scan which showed positive findings in 19 cases. In one patient a brain abscess was misinterpreted as a brain infarction and in 2 other patients with a negative CT scan, autopsy revealed a small pontine and hemispheric infarction, respectively. Apart from the misdiagnosis of the brain abscess the accuracy of the CT scan was acceptable. Extracranial complications as a cause of or contributing to death in stroke patients are common. Prevention, early detection and treatment of these complications are important. The findings underscore the importance of autopsy in the evaluation of stroke patients.
 ...
PMID:Fatalities in a stroke unit. 272 77

Cerebral aspergillosis is one of the most common mycotic infections in the central nervous system causing different clinical features such as brain abscess, granuloma, meningitis, and encephalitis. Cerebral aspergillosis, however, may lead to a cerebral vascular accident such as intracranial hemorrhage or cerebral infarction. In this report, we present two patients with cerebral aspergillosis accompanied by intracranial hemorrhage. A total of 124 reported cases of cerebral aspergillosis are reviewed to ascertain the pathogenesis of the associated vascular lesion. The first patient was a 9-year-old girl, who developed drowsiness with a headache during the medical treatment for acute myelocytic leukemia. CT disclosed subarachnoid and intraventricular hemorrhage. The autopsy revealed that the aspergillus arteritis was the cause of repeated hemorrhage. The second patient was a 15-year-old boy with allergic purpura and renal failure, who suddenly developed a stupor with convulsive seizure. CT disclosed an intracerebral hemorrhage in the right parieto-occipital area. The patient gradually deteriorated and died in spite of the surgical removal of the hematoma. The autopsy revealed that the hemorrhage was caused by the aspergillus arteritis. Cerebral aspergillosis has two routes of infection to the central nervous system: hematogenous dissemination from the distant site (usually the lung) and direct extension from the contiguous site (usually the paranasal sinuses or orbit). The primary mechanism of neuropathology is different between these two types. Primary cerebral arteritis is most often seen in patients with the former type, whereas primary basal meningitis occurs in the latter. The incidence of clinico-pathological features is different between hematogenous dissemination type and direct extension type.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
 ...
PMID:[Cerebral aspergillosis as a cerebral vascular accident]. 339 19

Between January 1980 and November 1982, of 152 patients admitted with a presumptive diagnosis of stroke to the University College Hospital (UCH), Ibadan, Nigeria, the final diagnosis was not 'stroke' in thirteen (8.6%). The true diagnoses in the thirteen patients were: glioma in three; meningioma, brain abscess, epilepsy and subdural haematoma in two patients each; hepatic coma and syringobulbia in one patient each. Failure to obtain adequate history, carry out thorough physical examination, and recognize valuable clues pointing to a different diagnosis were responsible for the misdiagnoses. Competent clinical acumen and expertise and selective cerebral angiography (in the absence of newer imaging techniques) would have prevented the errors.
 ...
PMID:Misdiagnosis of stroke. 632 50


1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Next >>