Vital Heart & Vein’s Dr. Khaled Khalaf, an interventional cardiologist, was recently featured in the Houston Chronicle’s “Medical Mystery Files,” a series about real medical cases that left doctors and patients searching for answers.
The story follows Houston anesthesiologist Dr. Tiffany Su, who briefly lost part of her vision in her right eye while working late one night. Her sight came back within minutes, but she knew something was wrong. Over the next two months, she saw several specialists, and the tests kept coming back normal.
A specialized heart test finally revealed that blood was passing through a small opening between the upper chambers of her heart. The condition is called a patent foramen ovale, or PFO. In Dr. Su’s case, a tiny clot likely passed through that opening and briefly blocked blood flow to her eye, which Dr. Khalaf described as a stroke in the eye.
What is a PFO? A PFO is a small hole between the heart’s upper chambers that helps a baby’s circulation before birth and normally closes after birth. In roughly one in four people, it stays open. More than 95% of those people never have symptoms. In a small number of cases, though, clots can slip through the opening and travel to places like the brain or eye, which can cause a mini-stroke or stroke-like symptoms.
How was it treated? Dr. Khalaf closed the PFO with a minimally invasive, outpatient procedure. Using a catheter guided to the heart, he placed a small device that seals the opening. The procedure took about 30 minutes, and Dr. Su went home the same day. She later said her life is back to normal.
PFOs aren’t routinely screened for, since most people never have problems. Dr. Khalaf stressed that doctors should consider the possibility when a younger patient has unexplained stroke-like symptoms. Dr. Su’s husband, also an anesthesiologist, offered advice any patient can use: keep pressing for answers until your symptoms are explained.
Read the full story in the Houston Chronicle →
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