Practicability and Diagnostic Yield of One-Stop Stroke CT with Delayed-Phase Cardiac CT in Detecting Major Cardioembolic Sources of Acute Ischemic Stroke: A Proof of Concept Study

PURPOSE: Recurrent stroke is considered to increase the incidence of severe disability and death. For correct risk assessment and patient management it is essential to identify the origin of stroke at an early stage. Transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) is the initial standard of care for evaluating patients in whom a cardioembolic source of stroke (CES) is suspected but its diagnostic capability is limited. Transesophageal echocardiography (TEE) is considered as gold standard; however, this approach is time consuming, semi-invasive and not always feasible. We hypothesized that adding a delayed-phase cardiac computed tomography (cCT) to initial multimodal CT might represent a valid alternative to routine clinical echocardiographic work-up. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Patients with suspected acute cardioembolic stroke verified by initial multimodal CT and subsequently examined with cCT were included. The cCT was evaluated for presence of major CES and compared to routine clinical echocardiographic work-up. RESULTS: In all, 102 patients with suspected acute CES underwent cCT. Among them 60 patients underwent routine work-up with echocardiography (50 TTE and only 10 TEE). By cCT 10/60 (16.7%) major CES were detected but only 4 (6.7%) were identified by echocardiography. All CES observed by echocardiography were also detected by cCT. In 8 of 36 patients in whom echocardiography was not performed cCT also revealed a major CES. CONCLUSION: These preliminary results show the potential diagnostic yield of delayed-phase cCT to detect major CES and therefore could accelerate decision-making to prevent recurrence stroke. To confirm these results larger studies with TEE as the reference standard and also compared to TTE would be necessary.