Foramen ovale (heart)

The foramen ovale ( Latin for " oval hole " ) in the heart is a door -like connection between the atria of the heart that allows blood crossing from the right ( pulmonary circulation ) to the left ( systemic circulation ) in fetal ( prenatal ) circuit. Since the lung is not ventilated and is therefore not functionally with blood, the blood flows through the foramen ovale into the left atrium and through the ductus arteriosus (or ductus arteriosus ) from the pulmonary artery into the aorta.

The foramen ovale normally closes in the first few days or weeks. Instead of the hole is then found at the heart of a shallow pit, the fossa ovalis ( " oval pit "). Surrounded is the fossa ovalis in the right atrium of a seam ( limbus fossae ovalis ) and left it on the valve of foramen ovale ( falx septi ) is covered.

If this is not the closure, one speaks of a continuing or ongoing patent foramen ovale ( PFO). Up to 25 % of all people living with a patent foramen ovale in the atrial septum. With the help of color Doppler echocardiography can then be detected through this opening a low blood flow. The children are not impaired and treatment rarely required. If the opening is large and hemodynamically significant, it is rather the Atrial II (ASD II) associate.

Nevertheless, this is especially important when scuba diving, where during the dive with pressure compensation ( Valsalva maneuver ) can pass microbubbles in the arterial system. In a case series of diving accidents at the University Hospital Dusseldorf, more than half of the treated there diving accidents could be attributed to the PFO.

According to recent studies, there is a relationship between PFO and migraine. For a portion of adults whose PFO was closed, disappeared or were reduced migraine attacks.

Recent findings suggest that pocket-shaped remnant of the foramen ovale in the left atrium with stroke in unknown origin (especially in younger people ) are instituted, there can form clots in such a bag.