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Updated: Jul 11, 2026

Combined Near-infrared Fluorescent Imaging and Micro-computed Tomography for Directly Visualizing Cerebral Thromboemboli
Published on: September 25, 2016
Cerebral emboli in cryptogenic ischemia: a reason to enforce diagnostic testing
W D Niesen1, U Sliwka, A Lingnau
1Department of Neurology, Friedrich-Schiller University Jena, Jena, Germany.
Background:
Stroke of unknown origin is a diagnostic and therapeutic challenge. A subgroup-analysis was performed to evaluate microembolus detection in these cryptogenic strokes.
Methods And Results:
In this study, 78 patients with acute cerebral ischemia in the anterior circulation were monitored for microembolic signals (MES) by the use of transcranial doppler at admittance and 2 times at 24-hour intervals. All patients underwent routine stroke work-up. Twenty patients presented with cryptogenic ischemia. Of these 20 patients, 30% (6/20) showed MES during examination 1, 20% (4/20) in examination 2, and 20% (4/20) in examination 3.
Conclusion:
MES could be detected in 45% of patients with cryptogenic ischemia. Thus, the underlying pathology may be in part embolic. The detection of MES in cryptogenic ischemia should therefore be an argument for extensive retesting to maybe identify a potential embolic source.
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