Sign up for email alert when new content gets added: Sign up
Angela Munoz Navarro Gasco
Bedford Medical Centre, Ireland
Keynote: Curr Res Cardiol
Statement of the problem: The third cause of death, as well as the first cause of functional disability in developed countries, is ischemic stroke. Up to 30-40% of them are classified as "undetermined", currently known as ESUS (Embolic Stroke of Undetermined Source). The prevalence of PFO is between 20-25% but this increases to 56% in patients with ESUS. This number is higher in younger patients and is associated with a large number of recurrences, making it the most likely cause of stroke in patients under 55 years of age. However, we are not monitoring or treating them to prevent it. The objective of this study is to analyze whether PFO can be added as a cardiovascular risk to suffer a stroke in patients with other cardiovascular pathologies, in order to create individual treatment strategies in the future. Methodology & theoretical orientation: A retrospective- observational study of ischemic stroke in patients who had PFO in 2019 was used. A descriptive statistical analysis was carried out using the statistical program SPSS-21 of all the data acquired. Continuous variables are presented as mean ± standard deviation and categorical variables as number (percentage). Findings: The data shows that, for the studied sample, none of the cardiovascular risk factors: hypertension, diabetes, hypercholesterolemia, obesity in addition to PFO increased the risk of suffering a stroke. Conclusion & significance: In our study, PFO does not add an extra risk to suffer stroke, although more data and a bigger sample with more patients are needed to stablish a conclusion and in order to gain information to prevent stroke in patients with this condition.
Recent Publications:
1. Permanent Foramen ovalea and cryptogenic stroke.Rev.Urug.Cardiol. [online]. 2019, vol.34, n.2, pp.130-145. Epub 01-Ago- 2019. SSN 0797-0048.
2. Kasner SE, Lavados P, Sharma M, Wang Y, Wang Y, Dávalos A, et al. Characterization of Patients with EmbolicStrokes of Undetermined Source in the NAVIGATE ESUS Randomized Trial. J Stroke Cerebrovasc Dis [Internet].2018 Mar 7;
3. Hans-Christoph Diener, M.D., Ph.D., Ralph L. Sacco, M.D., J. Donald Easton, M.D., Dabigatran for Prevention of Stroke after Embolic Stroke of Undetermined Source N Engl J Med 2019;.
4. Ahmad Y, Howard JP, Arnold A, Shin MS, Cook Niu X, Ou-Yang G, Yan P-F, Huang S-L, Zhang Z-T, Zhang Z-H.Closure of patent foramen ovale for cryptogenic stroke patients: an updated systematic review and metaanalysis of randomized trials. J Neurol [Internet]. 2018 Jan 30;
5. Jérôme Wintzer-Wehekind, Alberto Alperi, Christine Houde, Jean- Marc Côté, David del Val, Mélanie Côté, Josep Rodés- Cabau. Percutaneous closure of patent foramen ovale in patients older than 60 years with cryptogenic stroke. Spanish Journal of Cardiology, Volume 73, Issue 3, March 2020, Pages 219-224.
Angela Munoz recently finished the specialty of family and community medicine, Dr. Munoz is also in love with emergencies and acute pathology, having finished the master's degree in this specialty. She is very involved in community care issues, especially focused on women's health, aware of the inequalities that exist between men and women in the health field. A member of the SoVaMFiC women's care group, she has given multiple talks and workshops since the beginning of her residency on issues related to Gender Violence sexual and reproductive health care at the Faculty of Medicine of Valencia and at regional and national conferences as a speaker. She trained in Spain, but she currently works at Bedford Medical Center in Ireland while she continues doing her doctoral thesis in cardiology with the University of Valencia, since research is another of her great passions.
