[The best of valvular heart disease in 1999]

The year 1999 confirmed important changes in the clinical presentation, the methods of investigation and the treatment of valvular heart disease. The near disappearance of acute rheumatic fever in the developed world, associated with the increase in life expectancy has resulted in degenerative aetiologies becoming the most common causes of valvular heart disease with a dominance of aortic stenosis and mitral incompetence. The increase in average age of the operated patients explains the increasing role of comorbidity and the higher incidence of mixed (valvular and coronary artery) surgery. Doppler echocardiography is now the reference method of investigating valvular heart disease, both pre- and post-operatively (especially in mitral incompetence). The value of tri-dimensional echocardiography is beginning to be recognised. The technical advances in surgical techniques are also important, especially the extension of conservative methods both in mitral incompetence and parietal lesions of dystrophic aortic incompetence. The good long-term results of homograft aortic valves have been confirmed, especially in young patients and infectious endocarditis complicated by abscess. The Ross procedure is an interesting alternative in children and adolescents in the absence of available homografts. The persistence of good results in the long term has made percutaneous mitral commissurotomy the reference in mitral stenosis. The improvement in surgical and interventional methods has widened the operative indications which are now considered in patients who are pauci- or a-symptomatic.