Percutaneous mitral balloon valvotomy. Long-term outcome and assessment of risk factors for death and major events

Objective: To identify the factors that predict death and combined events, (death, new mitral balloon valvotomy, or mitral valve surgery) in long-term follow-up of patients undergoing percutaneous mitral balloon valvotomy.

Methods: Follow-up was 49.0+/-31.0 (1 to 122) months. Techniques used were the single-balloon (84.4%), Inoue-balloon (13.8%), and double-balloon techniques (1.7%).

Results: Included in the study were 289 patients 38.0+/-12.6 years of age (range, 13 to 83). Before the procedure, 244 patients had echocardiographic score < or = 8, and 45 patients had score > 8. Females comprised 85%, and 84% patients were in sinus rhythm. During follow-up, survival of the total group was 95.5%, that of the group with < or = 8 was 98.0%, finally that of the group with scores > 8 was 82.2% (P < 0.0001), whereas combined event-free survival was 83.4%, 86.1%, and 68.9%, respectively (P < 0.0001). In the multivariate analysis, the factors that predicted long-term death were a preprocedure echocardiographic score > 8 and the presence of severe valvular mitral regurgitation during the procedure. The events that predicted combined events were a previous history of mitral valvular commissurotomy and atrial fibrillation and the presence of severe mitral valvular regurgitation during the procedure, and postprocedure mitral valvular area < 1.5 m2 (failure).

Conclusions: Percutaneous mitral balloon valvotomy is an effective procedure, and over 2/3 of the patients were event-free at the end of follow-up. Survival in the group was high, even higher in the group with lower echocardiographic scores.