Objective To know more about the correlation between patent foramen ovale (PFO) and ischemic stroke among young and middle-aged people through analysis on various risk factors of ischemic stroke. Methods Eighty-three patients with cerebral infarction from 15 to 55 years old diagnosed for the first time in the Department of Neurology of Xianyang Hospital between January 2016 and January 2017 were selected as the study subjects. They were divided into two groups, PFO group (n=42) and non-PFO group (n=41). Seventy-eight heathy people from the Physical Examination Department of the same hospital were selected as controls. All patients and heathy subjects underwent transcranial Doppler (TCD) foaming experiments, and the occurrence and shunt volume of PFO were observed. General information and cerebrovascular disease risk factors of the patients were investigated. Results The age of subjects in PFO and non-PFO groups was not significantly different (P>0.05). Among the risk factors, there was no significant difference between the PFO and non-PFO groups in drinking history (P>0.05). The incidences of other ischemic stroke risk factors (hypertension, diabetes, smoking, hyperlipidemia, hyperhomocysteinemia, and carotid arteriosclerosis) in the PFO group were significantly lower than those in the non-PFO group (P<0.05). The rank sum test results showed that large and medium shunt rates of the cerebral infarction group were significantly higher than those of the control group (P<0.05). Conclusions PFO may be one of the cause of ischemic stroke in young and middle-aged people. Pathogenesis of ischemic stroke is likely to have a relationship with the severity of the shunt from right to left.