Is functional assessment of mitral regurgitation using transthoracic echocardiography accurate?
Maurice Enriquez-Sarano
Correspondence Mayo College of Medicine, 200 First Street SW, Rochester, MN 55905, USA
Email sarano.maurice@mayo.edu
This article has no abstract so we have provided the first paragraph of the full text.
MR is common due to the high prevalence of degenerative valve diseases and functional MR caused by ischemic heart diseases and cardiomyopathy. The management of severe MR focuses on the possibility of performing valve repair because, compared to valve replacement, this is associated with lower operative risk, better long-term survival, improved postoperative left ventricular function and excellent durability.1, 2 Identifying patients with severe MR and a high probability of successful valve repair is therefore essential to identify those eligible for early surgery—even before symptoms or overt left ventricular dysfunction are detected. Early surgery was graded as only a class IIb indication in the 1998 American College of Cardiology and American Heart Association guidelines because of limited evidence supporting this intervention, but data now suggest that it allows restoration of the patient's life expectancy, which underscores the importance of anatomical analysis and prediction of repair.
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