OBJECTIVES Foramen ovale is of great surgical and diagnostic importance in procedures like percutaneous trigeminal rhizotomy for trigeminal neuralgia, transfacial fine needle aspiration technique in perineural spread of tumour and electroencephalographic analysis for seizure. This study presents the anatomic variations in dimensions, appearance and number of foramen ovale. METHODS We studied ...

Patent foramen ovale (PFO) is an atrial septal deformity present in around 25% of the general population. PFO is associated with major causes of morbidity, including stroke and migraine. PFO appears to be heritable but genes involved in the closure of foramen ovale have not been identified. The aim of this study is to determine molecular pathways and genes that are responsible to the postnatal ...

BACKGROUND The merozoite surface protein-1 (MSP-1) is a candidate target for the development of blood stage vaccines against malaria. Polymorphism in MSP-1 can be useful as a genetic marker for strain differentiation in malarial parasites. Although sequence diversity in the MSP-1 locus has been extensively analyzed in field isolates of Plasmodium falciparum and P. vivax, the extent of variation...

Recent molecular studies indicate that Plasmodium ovale malaria is caused by two closely related species of protozoan parasites, thereby imposing new challenges for detection and species differentiation. This minireview explores the potential value of innovative methods for the molecular diagnosis of malaria with a strong emphasis on the discrimination and genotyping of P. ovale wallikeri and P...

BACKGROUND French military surveillance identified an increase in Plasmodium ovale attacks among soldiers in Ivory Coast. This emergence and the low sensitivity of biological tests raise the question of a possible role of P. ovale variant species. METHODS Epidemiological data about P. ovale attacks from 1993 to 2012 were studied; the species diagnosis was based on a thin blood smear and/or a ...

Background and Purpose: A patent foramen ovale has been reported to be significantly more frequent in young stroke patients than in matched control subjects, and paradoxical embolism has been suggested as the main mechanism of stroke in this situation. The present study was designed to test this hypothesis. Methods: Sixty-eight consecutive patients under 55 years of age presenting with an ische...

We report a case of a patient returning from Cameroon who developed Plasmodium ovale malaria, despite atovaquone/proguanil (AP, Malarone) prophylaxis, which is widely used for the prevention of chloroquine-resistant malaria. AP is indeed active only on schizont blood forms of P. ovale but not against liver-stage hypnozoites and does not realize effective prophylaxis against delayed onset of P. ...

BACKGROUND In divers, the significance of a patent foramen ovale and its potential relation to paradoxical gas emboli remain uncertain. OBJECTIVE To assess the prevalence of symptoms of decompression illness and ischemic brain lesions in divers with regard to the presence of a patent foramen ovale. DESIGN Retrospective cohort study. SETTING University hospital and three diving clubs in Sw...