Patent foramen ovale in carcinoid heart disease.

Carcinoid heart disease (CHD) is an uncommon valvular heart disease that may occur in the case of carcinoid syndrome, due to the release of serotonin. Right-sided CHD is more frequent than left-sided CHD because of inactivation of serotonin by the lung. We report the case of a 74-year-old woman who had a previous history of digestive endocrine tumor and carcinoid syndrome, presented with a significant progression of its valvular heart disease during a follow-up of 1 year. A severe shunt through a patent foramen ovale (PFO) was observed and was associated with the development of left-sided CHD. We performed percutaneous closure of PFO, with a reduction of symptoms. Our report highlights that assessment of PFO in patient with carcinoid syndrome is of importance because it allows to detect patient at high risk of CHD progression and percutaneous PFO closure may thus be proposed. Copyright (c) 2008 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.