What are the benefits of cardiac CT and cardiac MRI for patients with acute stroke?
Cardiac CT has a modest sensitivity (72%) and high specificity (95%) for detecting potential embolic sources in patients with cryptogenic stroke in whom TEE is used as the gold standard. A single-center study of consecutive patients with cryptogenic stroke who underwent both TEE and cardiac MRI found that cardiac MRI reduced the percentage of patients with cryptogenic stroke by only slightly >1%. Additionally, TCD compares favorably with TEE for detecting right-to-left shunting, which is usually the result of PFO, now a potential target for device closure.