Measuring mitral regurgitation predicts clinical outcome of treatment

doi:10.1136/bmj.330.7490.498-a

BMJ 2005;330:498 (5 March), doi:10.1136/bmj.330.7490.498-a

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Measuring mitral regurgitation predicts clinical outcome of treatment

New York Scott Gottlieb

Quantitative grading of mitral regurgitation, based on the effective regurgitant orifice of the valve and the regurgitated volume of blood, is a powerful predictor of the clinical outcome of medical management in asymptomatic patients. Patients with an effective regurgitant orifice of 40 mm² or more should be considered for surgical repair.

The prognostic power of this quantitative classification superseded that of all other semiquantitative indexes, say the authors of the new study. They accurately determined the rates of death from any cause, death from cardiac causes, and cardiac events with the use of medical management based on this new classification (New England Journal of Medicine 2005;352:875-83).

The researchers, led by Dr Maurice Enriquez-Sarano of the divisions of cardiovascular diseases and internal medicine at the Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota, prospectively enrolled 456 patients with asymptomatic organic mitral regurgitation to determine independent predictors of outcomes from . . . [Full text of this article]

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