MR Evidence of Cardiac Inflammation Post-Stroke

Prior treatment

• History of known atrial fibrillation, prior myocardial infarction, coronary artery disease, heart failure, prior cardiovascular surgery or percutaneous intervention.
• Previous stroke (occurred within 3 months before the index event)
• Ongoing infection or recent infection within the previous 3 months
• Surgery within 3 months before the stroke
• Concurrent and active inflammatory conditions (connective tissue diseases, rheumatological disease, etc.) or use of anti-inflammatory medications

Other illness

• hs-TnT \>100 on routine acute stroke baseline bloodwork upon admission.
• Stroke with symptomatic hemorrhagic transformation
• Subjects will be excluded if they fail the LHSC standard MRI screening questionnaire (cardiac pacemakers/wires, aneurysm clips, shunt/surgical clips, shrapnel/bullets, dentures or metal braces, intra-uterine devices, heart valves, ear implants, prostheses, medication patches such as Nicoderm, Habitrol, or Transderm-Nitro, claustrophobia, history of a head or eye injury involving metal fragments.

Lab values

• Impaired renal function defined as a creatinine clearance \<97 mL/min in men or \<88 mL/min in women, according to the Cockcroft formula.
• Pregnancy, Stage IV renal insufficiency, eGFR \<30, and any other contraindications to the use of gadolinium.

Other

• Clinically or neurologically unstable patients as per the treating physician.

• Acute ischemic stroke in the right or left MCA territory. Acute ischemic stroke is defined as acute onset focal symptoms matching an acute brain infarct documented on Head computed tomography or diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) MRI of the brain showing restricted diffusion.