Closed Mitral Valvotomy Reenvision

In developing countries, like the Indian subcontinent, population overload, malnutrition, poor socio-economic status of affected groups, and health care facilities affect the treatment outcome. Nowadays procedures such as percutaneous balloon mitral valvotomy (PBMV) and open heart mitral valve replacement are offered to patients with mitral stenosis. Whenever PBMV is unavailable due to financial constraints and open surgical management cannot be offered due to overburdened healthcare facilities, closed mitral valvotomy (CMV) provides an excellent choice for patients with favorable mitral valve pathology. Many centers do not practice CMV and thus this procedure is dying out. The young generation of surgeons are not been trained in CMV. The purpose of our study is to reenvision CMV and emphasize its vital role in mitral stenosis patient subsets like pregnant women and young adults. We reviewed the literature for various valvotomy techniques done for mitral valve stenosis and restenosis. Immediate and late outcomes were compared between the patients receiving Percutaneous balloon mitral valvotomy and closed mitral valvotomy. The immediate and late-term results are comparable for PBMV and CMV and no statistically significant difference exists. The post-PBMV Mitral valve area (MVA) ranged from 2.1 +/- 0.7 cm^2 to 2.3 +/-0.94 cm^2 and post CMV MVA ranged from 1.3+/-0.3 cm^2 to 2.2+/-0.85 cm^2. Complications developing in both techniques are also nearly similar. Operative mortality in CMV patients ranged from 1% to 4.2%, also observed in PBMV patients in various studies. Mitral Regurgitation occurred in both groups equally and ranged from 0.3% to 14%. Restenosis was observed in both groups in the range of 4% to 5%. High fetal loss of around 20% mortality was witnessed in pregnant mitral stenosis patients undergoing open heart surgery. It's time to re-envision CMV since it is providing substantial outcomes and remitting the need for open-heart surgery at a very low cost in patients with mitral stenosis with a pliable valve.