Click on the icon on the upper right hand side for the article written by Leor Perl, MD, Moti Vaturi, MD, Abid Assali, MD, Yaron Shapira, MD, Elchanan Bruckheimer, MD, Tuvia Ben-Gal, MD, Hana Vaknin-Assa, MD, Alik Sagie, MD and Ran Kornowski, MD.
IMAJ 2012: 15: October: 608-612
Abstract
Background: Mitral regurgitation (MR) causes increased morbidity and mortality in heart failure patients and is often associated with augmented surgical risk.
Objectives: To assess the preliminary results of transcatheter mitral valve leaflet repair (TMLR) in a single academic center.
Methods: Data were collected prospectively in the cardiology department of Rabin Medical Center in 2012. Ten consecutive patients (age 69.3 ± 15.9 years, ejection fraction 36.5 ± 9.4) who were poor surgical candidates with severe functional MR underwent general anesthesia, followed by trans-septal puncture and a TMLR procedure using the MitraClip device.
Results: All 10 patients were considered to have severe functional MR prior to TMLR treatment and were all symptomatic; the mean New York Heart Association (NYHA) class was 3.4 ± 0.5. The MR severity was 4 ± 0. There were no immediate complications or failures of the procedure. One patient died on day 5 due to massive gastrointestinal bleeding. Immediately following TMLR all 10 patients showed a profound MR reduction to a mean severity grade of 1.6 ± 0.6. At one month after the procedure, NYHA had decreased to an average of 1.7 ± 1.0 and was at least grade 2 in all but one patient. After 6 months the MR remained ≤ 2 in six of eight patients, with a NYHA average of 1.4 ± 0.5.
Conclusions: The MitraClip procedure was shown to be relatively safe, providing significant clinical benefits to a relatively sick population with severe MR. It is therefore an important alternative to surgery in these high risk patients.
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