Recently, the Department of Cardiology of the Third People's Hospital of Shenzhen Municipality, Guangdong Province (the Second Affiliated Hospital of Southern University of Science and Technology) treated a 33-year-old female patient, Ms. Qin (pseudonym).
Ms. Qin suddenly fainted while chatting with colleagues, woke up to find herself unable to speak, and was subsequently diagnosed with cerebral infarction and had an emergency intravenous thrombolysis.
Ms. Qin is still young, the blood vessels in the brain have not hardened, why is there a cerebral infarction? Cardiovascular and cerebrovascular experts "joined forces" to check the cause of the disease, and finally found that the "murderer" was actually an extra "hole" in the heart!
Suddenly fainted, woke up unable to speak
On December 21, 2021, Ms. Qin, who lives in Longgang, Shenzhen, was on duty for the evening. At two o'clock in the morning, she was chatting with her colleagues, chatting and chatting, but suddenly fell down! The colleagues were frightened, and when Ms. Qin woke up, she found that she could not even speak.
Seeing this situation, the colleague immediately dialed 120, and Ms. Qin was then sent to the hospital, where she was diagnosed with "acute cerebral infarction" and improved after thrombolytic treatment.
Cerebral infarction is more common in middle-aged and elderly people, Ms. Qin is only 33 years old, why do you have cerebral infarction?
After excluding the high risk factors of cerebrovascular disease, Zhao Yu, director of the Department of Neurology, believes that Ms. Qin should be screened for the cause of cardiogenicity. Gao Hong, chief physician of the Department of Cardiology, confirmed that Ms. Qin had "patent foramen oval", which was the culprit of her cerebral infarction based on cardiac ultrasound and right cardiac acoustic angiography and heart foaming experiments!
The foramen oval is formed in the 6th to 7th weeks of embryonic development and is a blood circulation channel between the left and right atriums of the fetal period, through which blood from the mother's umbilical vein flows from the right atrium to the left atrium, into the left heart cavity of the fetus, and then flows throughout the body, providing oxygen and nutrition for fetal development. Most people's oval holes close after 2 months of birth and reach complete closure within 1 year, and failure to integrate normally after 3 years of age is called "oval hole patent".
Normally, the venous blood of the middle and lower limbs of adults will enter the right atrium, then enter the right ventricle, enter the left atrium and left ventricle after pulmonary filtration and oxygenation through the pulmonary artery, and then transport it from the aorta to the brain, kidneys and other organs. However, in patients like Ms. Qin, whose foramen is not closed, venous blood will flow directly from the right atrium through the foramen ovulum to the left atrium, flowing with the arteries to the brain, and when there is a blood clot in the venous system, it is easy to cause cerebral infarction.
1 in 4 adults has an open ovary hole
According to the doctor, shortly after Ms. Qin was admitted to the hospital, the Department of Neurology also admitted a 35-year-old male patient, Mr. Tian (pseudonym), who had repeated headaches for ten years and had not been able to find out the cause, and could only rely on painkillers to alleviate the attack. At the beginning of 2022, Mr. Tian had a headache again, and this time, he also felt a whirlwind.
Ct of the brain showed that Mr. Tian had multiple acute cerebral infarctions in the bilateral cerebellar hemispheres, followed by emergency intravenous thrombolysis. Like Ms. Qin, Mr. Tian also does not have cerebrovascular abnormalities, and after a series of examinations, he has also been diagnosed with a patent foramen.
According to doctors, patent foramenovales can cause headaches, migraines, dizziness, tinnitus, depression, decompression sickness, hearing loss, abnormal embolism and unexplained hypoxemia, while in adults, the incidence of patent foramen is as high as 25%.
"About 1 in 4 adults has patent foramen, but many people have not heard of the disease, they rarely think of the heart, and many doctors do not think of checking for cardiogenic factors." Gao Hong said.
Gao Hong appealed to the public to consider the possibility of patent foramen after the occurrence of relevant symptoms and the exclusion of other causative factors, and to go to a hospital with relevant qualifications in time.
At present, ms. Qin and Mr. Tian have both undergone cardiac catheterization surgery for patent foramen to avoid another stroke (also known as "stroke") related to patent foramen, and they have recovered well and have been discharged home.
This article is reproduced from the WeChat public account "Guangzhou Daily"