[Effect of programming different AV intervals on mitral insufficiency in patients with DDD pacemaker]
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Updated: Oct 9, 2026

A Simplified Stepwise Approach to Echo Guidance during Percutaneous Mitral Valve Repair
Published on: October 16, 2021
1Serviço de Cardiologia dos Hospitais da Universidade de Coimbra. marcogege@yahoo.com
Objective:
To study the effect of programming three different atrioventricular intervals (AVI) on mitral insufficiency (MI) in patients with permanent pacemaker due to complete atrioventricular block.
Methods:
We included 9 patients (mean age 62 +/- 11 years; 6 men), with permanent DDD pacemaker, isolated MI and normal ventricular function. We evaluated MI (in a quantitative way) and cardiac output (CO) through echocardiographic examination with three different AVI (100, 150 and 200 ms).
Results:
We observed a reduction in the severity of MI with the reduction of the AVI (best results obtained with AVI of 100 ms). We also observed an increase in the CO in 4 patients (those with MI of greater degree) with AVI of 100 ms.
Conclusions:
We observed a correlation of longer AVI with greater degree of MI; our results point to the possibility of increasing the CO of patients with greater degrees of MI with shortening of the AVI (probably due to a partial recovery of the regurgitant volume).
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