To close or not to close: contemporary indications for patent foramen ovale closure

ABSTRACT

Introduction: Patent foramen ovale (PFO) is a common congenital cardiac abnormality and that has been associated with several disease processes including transient ischemic attacks (TIA), stroke, migraine headaches with aura, decompression sickness, platypnea-orthodeoxia syndrome, and shunt induced cyanosis. Controversy exists regarding closure of PFO as a therapeutic treatment modality for these disease processes. This review addresses the contemporary clinical indications for PFO closure.

Areas covered: We conducted a comprehensive literature search of contemporary research studies focusing on randomized trials and meta-analyses comparing medical therapy and device closure of PFOs for the treatment of PFO associated clinical syndromes. We synthesized this literature into a review addressing indications for PFO closure in stroke, TIA, migraine headaches with aura, decompression sickness, platypnea-orthodeoxia syndrome, and shunt induced cyanosis.

Expert commentary: Because in many PFO associated conditions it can be difficult to determine the degree to which the PFO is a causative factor in the disease process, we recommend a comprehensive diagnostic evaluation to exclude other obvious etiologies of PFO associated conditions before implicating the PFO and proceeding with closure. However in the properly selected patient population there is growing clinical experience and experimental evidence suggesting that closure of PFO is a safe and effective treatment modality.

KEYWORDS:

• Patent foramen ovale
• closure devices
• stroke
• transient ischemic attack
• migraine headache
• decompression sickness
• platypnea-orthodeoxia syndrome
• venous thromboembolism

Declaration of interest

VS Mahadevan is a consultant for St. Jude Medical. H Sievert has received consulting fees, travel expenses and study honoraria from Abbott, Ablative Solutions, Acoredis, Atrium, Biosense Webster, Bioventrix, Boston Scientific, Carag, Cardiac Dimensions, CardioKinetix, Celonova, Cibiem, CGuard, Coherex, Comed B.V., Contego, CSI, CVRx, ev3, FlowCardia, Gardia, Gore, GTIMD Medical, Guided Delivery Systems, Hemoteq, InspireMD, Kona Medical, Lumen Biomedical, Lifetech, Medtronic, Occlutech, pfm Medical, Recor, SentreHeart, Svelte Medical Systems, Terumo, Trivascular, Valtech, Vascular Dynamics, Venus Medical and Veryan; and has stock options in Cardiokinetix, Access Closure, Coherex and SMT. The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.

Additional information

Funding

This paper was not funded.