[Ventricular rupture in mitral valve surgery. Five-year experience].

Objective: We present our 5-year experience in ventricular rupture in mitral valve surgery.

Material And Methods: We analyzed all patients submitted to mitral valvular surgery between January 1st, 1997 and December 31, 2001. Incidence and type of rupture, technique for repair and morbi-mortality were analyzed.

Results: Mitral valve surgery was performed in 1151 patients with different modalities. Seventeen patients (5 male and 12 female) had ventricular rupture. The incidence was 1.47%. Mean age was 55 years. Four (23%) were in the right ventricle and 13 (76%) in left ventricle and atrioventricular groove. Of all ruptures, nine (52.9%) were in the simple mitral valve, three (17.6%) in mitroaortic surgery, two (11.7%) in mitral prosthetic replacement, two (11.7%) in mitro-tricuspid surgery and only one (5.8%) in mitral prosthetic valve resuture secondary to paravalvular leak. Six (35.2%) survived; two (11.7%) had right ventricular rupture and four (23.5%) had left ventricular rupture.

Conclusions: Incidence and mortality of this complication in our study group has seldom appeared in the literature worldwide. The most successful surgical method was the sandwich repair technique with Teflon strips and polypropylene suture plus packing.