The first-ever guidelines for interventional cardiologists using percutaneous patent foramen ovale closure recommend expanding the use of the procedure beyond the Food and Drug Administration-approved indication following PFO-associated ischemic stroke, adding clarification about the use of PFO with anticoagulation and hedging against abuse and overuse of the procedure, said the chair of the guideline writing committee.
"The most important things surrounding these guidelines are to help clinicians and policymakers — third-party payers — to address PFO in patient subsets that were not included in the large randomized clinical trials that led to FDA approval," said writing group chair Clifford J. Kavinsky, MD, PhD, chief of structural and interventional cardiology at Rush University Medical Center, Chicago
