The parachute mitral valve complex. Case report and review of the literature

A 10-month-old infant, the youngest patient thus far reported to have undergone successful correction of the developmental complex known as "parachute mitral valve," is presented. Severe mitral incompetence and aortic coarctation led to recurrent cardiac failure. Both anomalies were corrected in a one-stage procedure wherein the coarctation was resected under normothermia and the mitral valve replaced thereafter by a prosthesis employing deep hypothermia and total circulatory arrest. He made an uneventful recovery. Forty-two reported cases in the literature are reviewed and the pathologic and clinical features, diagnosis, natural history, and management briefly summarized.