[Nutritional improvement after operation of valvular heart diseases with protein-calorie malnutrition]

We evaluated the nutritional states before and after operation in patients with severe valvular heart disease characterized by malnutrition. The patient population consisted of 6 females, age range between 42 and 60, average 52.2 years old. The valve lesions were mitral stenosis in 2, combined aortic and mitral valve diseases in additional 4 patients, and moderate to severe tricuspid regurgitation was noted in 5 of these 6 patients. All 6 patients underwent a successful mitral (c/s aortic) valve replacement, and 5 of 6 tricuspid annuloplasty. The ideal body weight increased significantly from 77.9 +/- 3.4% preoperatively to 84.6 +/- 3.9% postoperatively (p < 0.01). Late postoperative cardiac catheterization revealed an improvement of mixed oxygen saturation (61.3 +/- 3.8%, preoperatively vs 67.3 +/- 5.6%, postoperatively; p < 0.01). The postoperative serum prealbumin, retinol binding protein and K value in intravenous glucose tolerance test increased significantly (p < 0.05) compared to those before operation. In conclusion, our data suggested that corrective surgery would have a good effect on nutritional improvement of the protein-calorie malnutrition caused by valvular heart diseases.