Not for adults only: MitraClip use in a paediatric patient

We present the primary report of a paediatric patient who had placement of the MitraClip device for severe functional mitral regurgitation. The patient was a 14-year-old boy with symptomatic end-stage non-compaction type cardiomyopathy secondary to a mitochondrial cytopathy. He had severe mitral regurgitation, tricuspid valve regurgitation, a severely dilated LV with apical non-compaction, severe LV dysfunction and severe pulmonary hypertension. Despite optimal medical therapy he developed progressive symptoms of congestive heart failure and he was not a candidate for an assist device or cardiac transplantation. Multimodality imaging with fluoroscopy, two-dimensional and three-dimensional transoesophageal echocardiography was used to guide the procedure. Two MitraClips were placed resulting in an adequate decrease in MR severity to no more than mild-moderate. Five months post MitraClip implantation, he has improved exercise tolerance. Transthoracic echocardiography showed mild to moderate mitral regurgitation and a decrease in left ventricular size. To our knowledge, this is the first reported paediatric patient to be offered this innovative procedure. Percutaneous edge-to-edge MV repair may prove to be a novel and effective palliation to consider in a subgroup of paediatric, adolescent and young adult patients. This case report describes some of the considerations specific to the paediatric patient.