Recurrence of Mitral Valve Regurgitation After Mitral Valve Repair in Degenerative Valve Disease

Abstract

To the Editor: In their study, Flameng et al1 raised a word of caution in early repair for patients with moderate mitral regurgitation. The authors provide unquestionable echocardiographic data showing that mitral repair is not consistently stable over time. First, this series represents a single surgeon’s experience of patients operated on over an extended period of time, although this information is not provided in the article. Similarly, median follow-up is not provided and would have been much appreciated for interpretation of the Kaplan-Meier curves. In their Kaplan-Meier analysis, the authors gave dual information, as follows: first, they analyzed patients with grade II, III, and IV mitral regurgitation (MR) and compared them with patients who had grade I MR or no MR. Secondly, they performed similar analyses for patients with grade III and IV MR and compared them with patients who had grade I or II MR or no MR. When analyzing for predictors …