What is the association between migraine and PFO?
Initial studies found that PFOs are more common in young patients with cryptogenic stroke and those particularly migraine with aura. The speculated relationship between PFO and migraine includes microemboli that flow through the PFO, causing brain ischemia and thereby triggering migraine. However, recent studies have found a lack of association between migraine and PFO in a large population-based study among elderly individuals, in a hospital-based case-control study, and in a randomized double-blind sham-controlled trial, placing some doubt on whether PFO has a causal role in migraines.