title: Clinically suspected severe ischaemia-induced mitral regurgitation. Spectrum of lesions and features of high surgical risk by echocardiography.
abstract: Eighteen patients with clinical signs suggesting severe mitral regurgitation secondary to ischaemic heart disease were assessed by echocardiography. Non-ischaemic diseases needing specific therapy were revealed in six patients. In the other 12 patients echocardiography demonstrated myocardial lesions explaining the mitral regurgitation. Apart from the distinction between non-ischaemic conditions and lesions induced by ischaemia, echocardiography seems to be helpful in the demonstration of severe yet operable mitral valve regurgitation due to a small ischaemic lesion. Such cases are opposed to functional mitral regurgitation caused by extensive myocardial injury as demonstrated by two-dimensional echocardiography and reflected by a minimum mitral valve/septum separation of more than 2 1/2 cm on the M-mode echocardiogram. These conditions make symptomatic improvement by mitral valve surgery unlikely and carry an extremely high operative mortality. A more precise definition by heart catheterization is required when serious clinical heart failure is not explained by the echocardiographic finding of severe global myocardial impairment.
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D006328:Cardiac Catheterization; D003327:Coronary Disease / Q000150:complications*; D004452:Echocardiography; D005260:Female; D006352:Heart Ventricles / Q000503:physiopathology; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D008944:Mitral Valve Insufficiency / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000209:etiology / Q000601:surgery; D011183:Postoperative Complications / Q000401:mortality; D012306:Risk