Absence of an infarct on MRI is not uncommon after clinical diagnosis of ischemic stroke.

Introduction: An infarct on brain MRI is often seen as gold standard when diagnosing ischemic stroke. Although MRI has high sensitivity in detecting a lesion shortly after ischemic stroke, this rapidly declines when time progresses. We assessed the occurrence of a negative MRI 4-6 weeks after a discharge diagnosis of ischemic stroke, and compared the clinical characteristics of patients with a positive or negative MRI.