title: [Transesophageal echocardiography in the selection of patients prior to percutaneous mitral valvuloplasty. Study of 71 consecutive patients].
abstract: We studied 71 consecutive patients with mitral stenosis candidates for mitral valvuloplasty by means of transthoracic (TTE) and transesophageal echocardiography (TEE). We compared the information obtained by the two methods with respect to: mitral valve morphology (echocardiographic score), severity of mitral regurgitation, prevalence of atrial thrombus and incidence of spontaneous contrast in the left atrium. The assessment of valvular thickening, mobility and calcification was similar by the two methods. The assessment of the subvalvular disease was significantly lower by TEE than the assessed by TTE (1.66 +/- 0.6 vs 2.12 +/- 0.5; p less than 0.001). The total "score" obtained by TEE was significantly lower than the "score" obtained by TTE (7.32 +/- 1.9 vs 7.88 +/- 1.8; p +/- 0.001), but when we classified the patients in groups according to the "score", there were no significant differences between the groups obtained by the two methods. We detected mitral regurgitation in 27 patients (38%) by TTE and in 36 (50%) by TEE. The difference in the quantification of the mitral regurgitation was no more than one grade in any case. Atrial thrombus were detected in 16 patients (22%) by TEE and in 2 patients by TTE. Spontaneous contrast was seen in 53 patients (75%) by TEE and in only 1 by TTE. We conclude that TEE is essential in detecting atrial thrombus, but does not provide any new information about mitral valve morphology and mitral regurgitation in the selection of patients for percutaneous mitral valvuloplasty.
authors.affiliation: Unidad Cardiología-Hemodinámica, Hospital Nuestra Señora del Pino, Universidad de Las Palmas.
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Laraudogoitia
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Medina
authors.forename: J R
authors.initials: JR
authors.lastname: Ortega
authors.forename: I
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Coello
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Hernández
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Melián
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Jiménez
authors.forename: J
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Morales
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D002404:Catheterization; D004452:Echocardiography; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D008944:Mitral Valve Insufficiency / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000628:therapy*; D012044:Regression Analysis
vernacular_title: ECO transesofágico en la selección de los pacientes para valvuloplastia mitral percutánea. Estudio de 71 pacientes consecutivos.