Patients after persistent foramen ovale (PFO) closure: long-term benefits and risks. A contemporary approach to guide clinical decision making

Kardiol Pol. 2021 Feb 17. doi: 10.33963/KP.15817. Online ahead of print.ABSTRACTPatent foramen ovale is a congenital heart disease, which represents 80% of atrial septal defects and consist of a remnant of fetal circulation that functions in post-natal conditions as a transient interatrial right-to-left shunt of variable magnitude. The PFO may be implicated in the pathogenesis of several medical conditions, such as cryptogenic stroke, cryptogenic left circulation thromboembolism, migraine syndromes, decompression sickness. The most frequent indication for PFO closure remains PFO-associated left circulation thromboembolism. In select patients, PFO closure reduces stroke recurrence in comparison with medical therapy after more than 3 years of follow-up on average, especially in patients with a high risk of recurrence. While in PFO-associated left circulation embolism there is now a conclusive evidence on the growing benefit of PFO closure in the long term, in many other clinical conditions the degree of certainty of the results of the studies is deceiving. In this paper we will review the benefit and risks that one can expect at long term from percutaneous PFO closure in different clinical pictures, in order to facilitate therapeutic decision making.PMID:33599457 | DOI:10.33963/KP.15817
Source: Kardiologia Polska - Category: Cardiology Authors: Source Type: research