A 22-year-old female developed sudden loss of consciousness about 15 hours after bilateral femur shaft fracture. The cerebral fat embolism was suspected, but brain CT showed no abnormality. After recovery from comatous mental state which persisted about a month, brain MRI was perfomed and demonstrated scattered small lesions on periventricular white matter which appeared low signals on T1 and high signals on T2-weighted images. The follow-up MRI was taken at about 5 month after admission, when the patient recovered completely without any residual neurologic deficits, and it showed disappearance of previously noted lesions. We suggest MRI is valuable for detecting the lesions in patients with cerebral fat embolism.
Brain ; Embolism, Fat* ; Female ; Femur ; Follow-Up Studies ; Humans ; Magnetic Resonance Imaging* ; Neurologic Manifestations ; Unconsciousness ; Young Adult