The clinical results in the first five hundred patients with mitral stenosis undergoing valvuloplasty

A report is made of the clinical results in the first 500 patients operated on by mitral valvuloplasty in whom a preoperative diagnosis of predominant mitral stenosis had been made. The operation appears to offer some protection against late peripheral embolization. Four hundred forty of 442 surviving patients have been followed for periods of from six months to five years. Seventy seven per cent of the entire group are significantly improved. Thirty one per cent have had one or more attacks of a postoperative syndrome, but in only 7 per cent has there been clear-cut evidence of active rheumatic fever. Improvement in objective clinical findings, in particular in cardiac murmurs, heart size and the electrocardiogram, have been less striking than the subjective improvement.