Diagnostic dilemmas in a patient with multivascular embolic stroke

Abstract

We describe a patient admitted to the intensive care unit with aphasia, which was due to an embolic ischaemic cerebral stroke associated with a previously unknown patent foramen ovale. Eventually, this finding during echocardiography led us to the diagnosis of pancreatic cancer. The thrombotic complications of pancreatic cancer, in combination with a large, patent foramen ovale, support the mechanism of a paradoxical embolism through the patent foramen ovale as the cause of cerebral ischaemic stroke.