An atrial septal aneurysm may be associated with a patent foramen ovale. When paradoxical emboli result, the shunt must be closed and the atrial septal aneurysm excised. A reversed buttoned occluder device was successfully used for the transcatheter treatment of this condition.

There is currently no consensus on the optimal management of cryptogenic stroke in the presence of a patent foramen ovale (PFO). Some physicians do not believe in the added value of PFO closure in cryptogenic stroke, whereas, for others, cryptogenic stroke represents a situation where PFO closure would be the best management. Because of a lack of well-designed randomized trials, guidelines do n...

Chiari networks are present in the right atrium in a minority of the population and are usually of no clinical significance. On the other hand it may associate some pathological changes, as patent foramen ovale, intraatrial thrombus or atrial arrhythmias. We present the case of an asymptomatic young woman diagnosed with Chiari network during a routine echocardiography.

We present two cases of decompression illness in women in whom the initial symptom causing distress after completion of the dives was breast pain. Both women were also subsequently found to have a patent foramen ovale. We postulate that breast pain may be an unusual under-recognized manifestation of decompression illness.

Analysis of the protective effect of topical sunscreens on the UVB-radiation induced suppression of the mixed-lymphocyte-reaction. Effect of topical sunscreens on the UV-radiation-induced suppression of the alloactivating capacity in human skin in vivo. A 83 year old woman was transferred from the departnent of surgery because of a syncopal attack with hypotension. Twenty days before she had ha...

PRENATAL closure or narrowing of the foramen ovale is an uncommon cardiac anomaly usually associated with neonatal death. Such cases afford a unique opportunity to study the effects of reducing a major intracardiac shunt normally present in fetal life. The current study demonstrates new consequences of reducing this shunt. In late gestation, about one half of the blood reaching the right atrium...

BACKGROUND Despite the diffusion into practice of percutaneous closure of a patent foramen ovale (PFO) in patients with cryptogenic stroke (CS), the benefits have not been demonstrated, and remain unclear. For any individual presenting with a PFO in the setting of CS, it is not clear whether the PFO is pathogenically-related to the index event or an incidental finding. Further, the overall rate...

Patent foramen ovales (PFOs) are common congenital cardiac defects that are more prevalent among patients experiencing cryptogenic stroke than among those with strokes of known origin. Medical treatment for these processes is often considered inadequate, and mechanical closure of the PFO is an attractive, albeit controversial, alternative. Although it is plausible that percutaneous PFO closure ...