Echocardiographic evaluation of percutaneous valve repair in patients with mitral regurgitation using the CARILLON system.

Background: Dilated cardiomyopathy is characterised by significant enlargement of cardiac chambers, which can lead to functional mitral regurgitation. Surgery is a widely accepted treatment of secondary mitral regurgitation. Conventional cardiac surgery has a high procedural risk and therefore new techniques for percutaneous repair of mitral valve are being developed. The CARILLON system is one of devices that is implanted into the coronary venous system, which enables tension of the mitral ring in order to improve coaptation of the leaflets.

Aim: Echocardiographic analysis of the CARILLON system implantation efficacy evaluated directly and one month after implantation.

Methods: The study in included 9 patients, aged 58.56 +/- 6 years, with severe functional mitral regurgitation, who fulfilled the following echocardiographic criteria: large central jet ł 4 cm(2) or ł 20% of the left atrium area or wall-impinging eccentric jet reaching the pulmonary veins, vena contracta (VC) ł 0.30 cm, effective regurgitant orifice area (ERO) ł 0.2 cm(2), regurgitant volume (RV) ł 30 ml or regurgitant fraction (RF) > 30%. Exclusion criteria were: concomitant severe tricuspid valve insufficiency, significant organic mitral valve pathology, chronic atrial fibrillation, foreign body in the coronary sinus, or thrombus in the left atrial appendage. The prerequsite for implanting the device was a significant reduction in the mitral regurgitation jet observed by transesophageal echo-cadiography (TEE), seen during the procedure. After one month, a transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) was performed to evaluate mitral regurgitation by analysing the same parameters assessed before implanting CARILLON to the coronary sinus.

Results: A significant improvement of VC after the procedure, in comparison to the value before the procedure (0.43 +/- 0.12 vs. 0.66 +/- 0.14 cm, p < 0.05), was observed. This improvement was lower one month after the implantation of the device (0.35 +/- 0.1 cm, p < 0.005). The ratio of the jet area to the left atrial area was reduced from 54.96 +/- 11.18% to 38.57 +/- 9.79% (p < 0.005) and sustained after a month at 36.33 +/- 10.15% (p < 0.005). Other echocardiographic parameters of evaluation of mitral regurgitation tended to improve, however the differences did not reach statistical significance. The ERO in subsequent studies was: 0.25 +/- 0.09 cm(2), 0.23 +/- 0.07 cm(2), and 0.24 +/- 0.07 cm(2), and RV decreased from 33.06 +/- 11.81 ml before the procedure, to 32.33 +/- 7.84 ml one month after the procedure.

Conclusions: The CARILLON system implantation to the coronary venous system in patients with secondary mitral regurgitation can lead to the improvement of selected echocardiographic indices of mitral regurgitation.