4th Chilean Congress on Cerebrovascular Diseases: Julián Vega Adauy on the role of cardiac imaging in ischemic stroke

Behind an ischemic stroke there may be a source in the heart or the aorta. That meeting point between neurology and cardiology was the topic Dr. Julián Vega Adauy, a cardiologist specialized in cardiac imaging at INCIC, brought to the 4th Chilean Congress on Cerebrovascular Diseases.

The congress, organized by the Chilean Association of Cerebrovascular Diseases (ACEVE), took place on June 18–19, 2026 at the Marriott Hotel in Las Condes, Santiago. Dr. Julián Vega Adauy took part as an invited speaker and, on the morning of June 19, gave the talk «Cardiac imaging in ischemic stroke» (Imagen cardíaca en infarto cerebral).

The presentation focused on embolic stroke of undetermined source (ESUS) and on the value of multimodality cardiac imaging in searching for its origin. Dr. Julián Vega Adauy reviewed the sources that imaging can assess: patent foramen ovale and atrial septal aneurysm; the left atrium and left atrial appendage; the left ventricle; the valves; and atherosclerosis of the supra-aortic vessels. For patent foramen ovale, he reviewed the RoPE (Risk of Paradoxical Embolism) score and the PASCAL classification, which help estimate how likely it is that the foramen caused the stroke. The cases he showed included three-dimensional transesophageal echocardiography studies.

Among the references in the talk was the clinical consensus statement on ESUS by the ESC Council on Stroke, the European Association of Cardiovascular Imaging and the European Heart Rhythm Association, published in 2024 in the European Heart Journal.

The talk reflects INCIC’s approach: putting advanced cardiovascular imaging at the service of concrete clinical questions, in this case alongside the teams that treat stroke.