Jp. Quere et al., PARADOXICAL EMBOLISM FOLLOWING ACUTE PULMONARY-EMBOLISM - DIAGNOSIS AND OUTCOME, International journal of cardiology, 64(2), 1998, pp. 131-135
We report on ten cases of paradoxical embolism that occurred following
pulmonary embolism and emphasize the echocardiographic contribution.
Two patients had a thrombus trapped in a foramen ovale. An embolectomy
was performed on one of those patients and the outcome was post-opera
tive death. The other patient died suddenly prior to planned surgery.
The remaining eight had inter atrial communication or foramen ovale th
at were highly patent upon contrast echography. Two of them who presen
ted cardiogenic shock died rapidly despite resuscitation measures. The
remaining six patients were treated medically with anticoagulants and
have experienced no recurrence of embolism after a mean follow up 34/-31 months. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ieland Ltd.