[Congenital mitral abnormalities in children. Apropos of 44 cases]

Forty-four cases of mitral malformation were studied. Thirty times it was a mitral regurgitation, 10 times, a mitral stenosis. High frequency of associated malformations was observed. Tolerance was almost always very bad, leading to surgery in spite of the young age. Operative mortality was high (30%). To a certain extent, surgery should be palliative: commissurotomy in case of stenosis, with almost always bad results; annuloplasty in case of regurgitation, with sometimes good results. Good surgical results were observed in one third of the cases.