Intra-arterial treatment in a child with embolic stroke due to atrial myxoma.

Arterial ischaemic stroke is an important cause of morbidity in children. Timely diagnosis is necessary for acute stroke treatment but can be challenging in clinical practice. Due to a paucity of data there are no specific recommendations regarding the use of mechanical thrombectomy devices in current paediatric stroke guidelines. A 14-year-old boy presented with a severe acute left hemisphere stroke due to a proximal middle cerebral artery occlusion caused by emboli from an atrial myxoma. No clinical improvement was seen after administration of intravenous thrombolysis. Subsequent mechanical thrombectomy with a second-generation stent-based thrombectomy device resulted in successful recanalization and clinical improvement. To our knowledge, this is the first report of mechanical thrombectomy in a child with acute embolic stroke caused by atrial myxoma.