[The impact of social and institutional characteristics on the appropriateness of invasive cardiologic procedures].

Background And Purpose: Germany has the highest per capita rate of invasive cardiologic procedures in Europe. An aim of the SULEIKA study was to present a clearer picture of this important area of health care.

Methods: Clinical data along with social characteristics of patients were acquired by means of questionnaires.

Balloon mitral valvotomy after surgical commissurotomy: clinical and hemodynamic results of a large, single-center study.

Background And Aim Of The Study: Patients with restenosis after open or closed surgical commissurotomy (SC) often demonstrate more severe valve degeneration than patients without prior surgery. This may affect the result of balloon mitral valvotomy (BMV) in this patient group.

Methods: The immediate- and long-term results (maximum 106 months; mean 26 months) of BMV with the Inoue balloon in patients with prior SC were compared with findings in patients without prior surgery.

[Clinical and haemodynamic results after repeat valvotomy of the mitral valve using the Inoue balloon. A comparison with the results after primary valvotomy].

Background And Objective: Percutaneous mitral valvotomy (MVT) with the Inoue balloon is the most frequently performed therapeutic alternative to surgical commissurotomy in patients with symptomatic mitral valve stenosis. Few data are available on the results of repeat MVT.

Patients And Methods: We compared the immediate and 3-month results of all patients who had a repeat MVT (n = 39) with those who had a primary intervention (n = 1,117) in our institution between February 1989 and January 2001.