In a 50-year-old woman, admitted because of a renal infarction, a 10-cm long floating, highly mobile thrombus with a diameter of 15-20 mm in the descending aorta was detected by transoesophageal echocardiography and magnetic resonance imaging. She was a poor surgical candidate due to obstructive lung disease and obesity. Under intravenous heparinization with prothrombin time test values between 80 and 100 s, followed by oral anticoagulation with international normalized ratio values between 3.0 and 4.0, the thrombus resolved after 10 weeks and no recurrence occurred over the next 30 months.

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Background: Left ventricular hypertrabeculation (LVHT), also termed noncompaction LVHT, is diagnosed by echocardiography or cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (CMRI), and associated with neuromuscular disorders (NMD). The aim of this study was to assess if LVHT can be diagnosed by CMRI applying echocardiographic definitions. Methods and Results:The CMRI images of 19 echocardiographically diagnosed LVHT patients were reevaluated (10 female, 14-67 y of age). Left ventricular hypertrabeculation was diagnosed by CMRI in 9 cases. Patients with CMRI-diagnosed LVHT were more often females (67% versus 40%), experienced heart failure more often (100% versus 50%), had an LV end diastolic diameter >57 mm (67% versus 40%), had an LV fractional shortening <25% (89% versus 40%), and had a larger extension of LVHT than patients without CMRI-diagnosed LVHT. The prevalence of NMD (87%) did not differ between both groups. Conclusions: Echocardiographic definition for CMRI yielded the diagnosis of LVHT in only 47%. When looking for LVHT by CMRI, LV size, function, and extension of LVHT have to be considered.

Though basal ganglia calcification (BGC) has been recognized as a feature of mitochondriopathy, little is known about its frequency in a larger cohort. The aim of this work was to assess the frequency of BGC, type and frequency of clinical and additional imaging central-nervous-system (CNS) abnormalities and of non-CNS abnormalities in mitochondriopathy patients with BGC. Retrospectively reviewed were the records of all mitochondriopathy patients in whom BGC was found on cerebral CT during 10 years. Among those who underwent cerebral CT, thirty-six, 24 women, 12 men, aged 33-93 years, showed BGC. The most frequent clinical CNS manifestations in these patients were epilepsy (n = 9), Parkinson syndrome (n = 9), dementia (n = 7), dysarthria (n = 5), spasticity (n = 4), tremor (n = 4), or stroke (n = 4). Additional cerebral CT-findings were atrophy (n = 10), lacunas (n = 6), leucaraiosis (n = 6), focal gliosis (n = 4), or stroke (n = 1). MR imaging, carried out in 12 patients, confirmed BGC in one. The 36 patients presented with involvement of the CNS (n = 32), endocrine system (n = 29), peripheral nervous system (n = 28), heart (n = 23), inner ear (n = 16), eyes (n = 15), guts (n = 11), blood (n = 9), kidney (n = 2), or dermis (n = 2). BGC occurs in one sixth of non-selected patients with mitochondriopathy and is associated with clinical and imaging CNS abnormalities and multisystem disease in the majority of them.

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