[Catheter balloon valvuloplasty: new possibilities in the surgical treatment of mitral stenosis].

A total of 170 catheter balloon valvuloplastic (CBV) operations for rheumatic mitral stenosis were carried out in patients aged 19 to 68, 30 of these in pregnant women, at A. V. Vishnevsky Institute of Surgery, Russian Academi of Medical Scients, from 1988 to 1994. Characteristic features of such operations are a minor surgical trauma and no necessity in deep narcosis and artificial circulation. Analysis of the immediate results and of the data of five-year follow-up brings the authors to a conclusion about the efficacy of the new method of treatment of this heart disease and about the physiological nature of forming an adequate route of blood flow into the right ventricle with a balloon. Comparing various balloon catheters for valvuloplasty and methods to carry out this procedure, the authors emphasize the advantages of the instruments and method developed by professor V. A. Silin et al. (St. Petersburg). The possibility of correction of mitral stenosis by CBV in pregnant women appears to be particularly important. Retrospective analysis of the immediate results and follow-up data helped the authors not only formulate the indications for this intervention, but permitted them to develop an original system of comprehensive clinical and instrumental assessment of the degree of involvement of the mitral valve and subvalvular structures, and of hemodynamic disorders.