Platypnea-Orthodeoxia Syndrome: Diagnostic Challenge and the Importance of Heightened Clinical Suspicion
Year: 2015
Type: article
Study design: Case Report
Abstract: Platypnea-orthodeoxia syndrome is an uncommon condition of positional dyspnea and hypoxemia; symptoms occur when the patient is upright and resolve with recumbency. Causes can be broadly categorized into 4 groups: intracardiac shunting, pulmonary shunting, ventilation-perfusion mismatch, or a combination of these. Platypnea-orthodeoxia syndrome should be suspected when normal arterial oxygen saturations are recorded while an individual is supine, followed by abrupt declines in those saturations when upright. Further investigations with use of imaging and cardiac catheterization aid in the evaluation. When platypnea-orthodeoxia syndrome is due to intracardiac shunting without pulmonary hypertension, intracardiac shunt closure can be curative. In this article, we report a case of platypnea-orthodeoxia syndrome in an 83-year-old woman who was successfully treated by means of percutaneous transcatheter closure of an atrial septal defect.
Source: Texas Heart Institute Journal
Institutions: Mayo Clinic, Mayo Clinic Health System
Language: English
Subfield: Pulmonary and Respiratory Medicine
Field: Medicine
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W2175936070