Mitral valve plasty for better long term results

: Between July 1991 and January 1995, 74 patients with pure mitral valve regurgitation (MR) underwent mitral valve plasty (MVP) at out institute. Our procedure includes chordal replacement of the anterior leaflet with PTFE sutures (42 patients). There were one hospital death (1.4%) and two late deaths (2.7%) in this series. Only 2 patients (2.7%) needed valve replacement after unsatisfactory repair during the same operation. Late postoperative doppler echocardiographic study (mean follow-up, 12.0 months) showed less than mild regurgitation in 66 patients (95.7%) of 69 patients who are alive. In April 1993 we decided to complete the repair with no or only trivial regurgitant flow by intraoperative transesophageal echodoppler study (TEE). The results have remarkably improved. Late postoperative echodoppler study revealed less than mild reguritant flow in all 49 patients having undergone mitral valve repair with no or trivial regurgitation by intraoperative TEE. It is clear than the TEE study has contributed to the better quality of mitral valve plasty, and we believe that it is important for better long term results to complete mitral valve plasty with no or only trivial regurgitant flow.