Pleuropulmonary blastoma with a large embolic cerebral infarct.

We report on a 3-year-old girl who developed a large embolic cerebral infarct 1 day after an uneventful thoracotomy to remove a large pleuropulmonary blastoma. The tumour had encased the heart and great vessels and ruptured into the left hemithorax. Pleuropulmonary blastoma is a rare, but unique, primary thoracic neoplasm in young children and, to our knowledge, the development of a secondary large embolic cerebral infarct is also uncommon and has not been reported in this tumour.