Computed Tomography for Detecting Patent Foramen Ovale: A Meta-Analysis

OBJECTIVE: Patent foramen ovale (PFO) has been regarded as a potential source of cryptogenic stroke, which was conventionally detected by transesophageal echocardiography. Cardiac computed tomography (CCT) is a promising, noninvasive test for detection of PFO. We sought to conduct a meta-analysis to evaluate the diagnostic performance of CCT in detecting PFO. METHODS: PubMed, ISI Web of Knowledge, Embase, Cochrane Library, and Wanfang from inception to June 2020 were searched for relevant studies comparing CCT and transesophageal echocardiography as the reference standard in detecting PFO. A bivariate model was used to pool sensitivity and specificity and to construct summary receiver operating characteristic (SROC) curves. RESULTS: A total of seven studies with 483 patients were included in this meta-analysis. For the diagnosis of PFO, CCT had a mean sensitivity and specificity of 0.70 [95% CI:0.58, 0.79] and 0.97 [95% CI: 0.95, 0.99]. The SROC analysis showed an area under the curve of 0.97. CONCLUSION: CCT shows good diagnostic accuracy in detecting PFO with relatively high sensitivity and specificity. CCT could be considered a noninvasive alternative to transesophageal echocardiography for detecting PFO.