Incidence and Size of Patent Foramen Ovale During the First 10 Decades of Life: An Autopsy Study of 965 Normal Hearts
Section snippets
MATERIAL AND METHODS
Specimens of normal human hearts were procured from the tissue registry at our institution. For the study, hearts were considered normal if there was no clinical history or autopsy evidence of cardiovascular disease; accordingly, hearts were excluded if there was a history of hypertension or cardiomyopathy or if there was autopsy evidence of critical coronary atherosclerosis or functionally important valvular or congenital heart disease.
We obtained the most recently available autopsy specimens
RESULTS
The incidence of patent foramen ovale was 27.3% (263 of 965) for all age groups combined and 26.8% (127 of 473) for males and 27.6% (136 of 492) for females. No statistically significant difference was found in the incidence between males and females when the data were analyzed by decades. The incidence progressively declined with increasing age, however (Fig. 2). The foramen ovale was patent in approximately a third of persons 1 to 29 years of age, in about a fourth of those from 30 to 79
DISCUSSION
Among those features of the fetal circulation which may persist beyond the neonatal period, patency of the foramen ovale is the most common. Through this potential passageway, the right side of the heart may communicate directly with the left side of the heart, and thereby the pulmonary circulation may be bypassed.
Accordingly, any condition that results in higher right atrial pressure than left atrial pressure may produce a right-to-left shunt with systemic arterial desaturation and possible
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
We acknowledge Duane M. Ilstrup, Section of Medical Research Statistics, for the statistical analyses in this study.
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