title: Ischemic mitral regurgitation: pathophysiology, diagnosis and surgical treatment.
abstract: Ischemic mitral valve regurgitation often complicates acute myocardial infarction and also represents a negative prognostic factor for long-term survival in patients undergoing surgical myocardial revascularization. While severe mitral regurgitation should always be corrected during a coronary artery bypass operation, the decision making is more difficult in patients with a mild-to-moderate degree of regurgitation. Recent studies and experimental protocols have elucidated the pathophysiological mechanisms leading to mitral regurgitation with great interest in annular modifications and subvalvular alterations. These data suggest that new and integrated surgical approaches that address annuloplasty ring sizing, ring type selection and tethering phenomenon (i.e., chordal cutting, 'edge-to-edge' technique and left-ventricular plasty techniques) are required for a safer and durable valve repair. Transthoracic and transesophageal echocardiography are useful in determining the etiology and the degree of mitral regurgitation, to assess mitral deformation and to measure indexes of global and regional left-ventricular remodeling. Stress echocardiography may unmask higher degrees of mitral regurgitation. More data are needed in order to confirm the promising and interesting preliminary experimental findings of magnetic resonance imaging in diagnosis and clinical evaluation of ischemic mitral regurgitation.
authors.affiliation: University of Bari, Division of Cardiac Surgery, Piazza Giulio Cesare 11, 70100 Bari, Italy. paparella@tin.it
authors.forename: Domenico
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Paparella
authors.forename: Pietro Giorgio
authors.initials: PG
authors.lastname: Malvindi
authors.forename: Roberta
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Romito
authors.forename: Giuseppe
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Fiore
authors.forename: Luigi de Luca
authors.initials: Lde L
authors.lastname: Tupputi Schinosa
mesh_terms: D001026:Coronary Artery Bypass; D003937:Diagnosis, Differential; D004452:Echocardiography; D006801:Humans; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008944:Mitral Valve Insufficiency / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000209:etiology / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000601:surgery*; D009203:Myocardial Infarction / Q000150:complications / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000601:surgery; D017202:Myocardial Ischemia / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000209:etiology / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000601:surgery*; D009204:Myocardial Revascularization; D011379:Prognosis; D020257:Ventricular Remodeling / Q000502:physiology