The mitral valve is one of the four valves of the human heart. Serving as a passive check valve, a healthy mitral valve permits the flow of oxygenated blood from the left atrium to the left ventricle while preventing backflow. This is accomplished via the mutual collision of the leaflets and the tethering forces of the chordae tendineae (Figure 1). When backflow occurs, the preferred method of ...

The gold standard treatment of degenerative mitral valve disease remains surgical repair. The classic repair described by Dr. Carpentier (1) with leaflet resection and annuloplasty remains the primary technique for mitral repair. Other techniques such as the “American correction” (2) or artificial chordae have been introduced with similar success rates. Innovations in surgical approach over the...

Heart valves are functionally complex, making surgical repair difficult. Simulation-based surgical planning could facilitate repair, but current finite element studies are prohibitively slow for rapid, clinically-oriented simulations. An anisotropic, nonlinear mass-spring (M-S) model is used to approximate the behavior of valve leaflets and applied to fully image-based mitral valve models to si...

Introduction: Mitral valve replacement with chordal preservation requires technical skill, long cross clamp time and prolonged ischemic time of myocardium. Materials and Methods: All patients undergoing mitral valve replacement in the Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Government Rajaji Hospital during December 2009 to December 2011 were included in the study. Results: All the observations a...

Knowledge of the structural changes in the commissures, cusps, and chordae tendineate is important to the understanding of the pathologic physiology of mitral stenosis and its surgical correction. Study of 70 hearts with mitral stenosis disclosed that a frequent cause of the obstruction was commissural fusion or shortening of the chordae tendineae or both. In a small percentage of hearts, mitra...

OBJECTIVE The papillary muscles and the chordae tendineae of both mitral leaflets contribute to the preservation of the left ventricular function. Most surgeons, however, routinely excise the anterior mitral leaflet. METHODS In a group of nine patients, six of them underwent mitral valve replacement alone and three underwent both aortic and mitral valve replacements, all the mitral apparatus ...

Objectives: There are an increasing number of reports concerning mitral valve repair by reconstruction of the chordae tendinae with the use of expanded polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) sutures. However, little information is available about the extended application or results of this technique for extended prolapse of bilateral mitral leaflets, which is considered to be difficult to repair. Metho...

Fifty-three specimens in which the primary diagnosis in life was coaretation of the aorta were examined; only nine had a mitral valve of normal size and configuration. Ten specimens had a normally formed valve mechanism which was small in comparison to both tricuspid valve and left ventricle. Three other specimens had a normally formed but small valve which exhibited a short free margin of the ...

Fifty-three specimens in which the primary diagnosis in life was coaretation of the aorta were examined; only nine had a mitral valve of normal size and configuration. Ten specimens had a normally formed valve mechanism which was small in comparison to both tricuspid valve and left ventricle. Three other specimens had a normally formed but small valve which exhibited a short free margin of the ...

53-year-old man, who had undergone dental treatment 2 months prior, presented with a slight fever and generalized weakness for several weeks. He was examined carefully in a regional hospital. There was no elevation of inflammatory markers, and his blood culture was negative. Electrocardiogram showed atrial fibrillation. Transthoracic and transesophageal echocardiography (TEE) demonstrated a lar...