[Percutaneous transvenous mitral commissurotomy with a Medi-tech balloon catheter: the initial experience and midterm...

From Jan-21-91 to Jan-8-92 we performed percutaneous transvenous mitral commissurotomy (PTCM) with a Medi-tech balloon catheter (MBC) in 41 patients bearing mitral stenosis simple o predominant. We utilized an anterograde transseptal approach in order to access the mitral valve, the procedure failed in 5 patients, in 30 of them we used double MBC and single MBC were utilized in 6 patients. Both left ventriculogram and hemodynamic parameters were taken before and after PTCM. Posterior to PTCM an important decrease appeared in the mitral transvalvular gradient from 20.6 +/- 2.7 to 2.4 +/- 1.7 mmHg (p < 0.0001) and an average pressure of pulmonary artery of 46.2 +/- 9.8 to 23.9 +/- 6 mmHg (p < 0.0001), and also the pulmonary arterial resistance from 1178.1 to 557.1 dinas/cm-5/seg. There was an important concomitant increase in mitral valvular area from 0.84 +/- 0.11 to 2.38 +/- 0.08 cm2 (p < 0.0001) and in cardiac rate from 2.7 +/- 0.7 to 2.9 +/- 0.52 L/min (p < 0.001).

Two female patients developed cardiac tamponade, one of them the procedure was successful, and for the other it was decided to submit her to valvular replacement. Mitral insufficiency was present in three patients; GI/IV in two of them and GII/IV angiographic in one. Another patient presented cerebral thromboembolism with complete recovery within 15 days. Short left to right shunt was detected only in 8 patients being 1.2/1 in 6 of them, 1.3/1 in one and 1.4/1 in other patient. Thirty three uncomplicated were dismissed within a maximum of 48 hours after procedure.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)