Response to letter regarding article, “critique of closure or medical therapy for cryptogenic stroke with patent foramen ovale: the hole truth?”.

We appreciate the interest in our editorial and the comments by Dr Furlan. We would like to reiterate our initial comment that those involved in the Evaluation of the STARFlex Septal Closure System in Patients with a Stroke and/or Transient Ischemic Attack due to Presumed Paradoxical Embolism through a Patent Foramen Ovale (CLOSURE-I) trial deserve congratulations for shepherding the trial to completion and providing much needed data into an arena that has long been populated with more opinion than fact. We predicted that not many minds would be changed by CLOSURE-I, which failed to prove a …