After a stroke with no clear cause, a heart repair may be in order
A patent foramen ovale (PFO), a small opening between the heart’s right and left upper chambers, is common in people who have strokes with no clear cause. For them, a procedure to close the PFO lowers their chance of stroke more than drug therapy. Normally, the network of blood vessels in the lungs traps and destroys small clots and other debris moving through the bloodstream. But if a clot bypasses the lungs by taking a shortcut through a PFO, it may lodge in a brain blood vessel, resulting in a stroke. To close a PFO, a doctor threads a catheter though a vein in the upper leg to the heart to insert a device that plugs the opening.
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