Thirty-nine patientes with mitral insufficiency or mitral stenosis and incompetence submitted to valvular repair were evaluated in the late postoperative period. Mean age of the patients was 30.5 years, with standard deviation of 17.2 years. Twenty-four patients were females (61.5%) and 15 (38.5%) males. Twenty-one Carpentier ring annuloplasties, 12 repair with a posterior sling, five Merendino type annuloplasties and one Kay type annuloplasty were performed. Twenty-three (58.97%) patients presented symptons related to rheumatic fever disease, 12 (30.76%) had no definite etiology and four (10.25%) presented mucoid degeneration occurred in this series. Evolution time was 1497 months/standard (meam 38.39 months and Standard deviation of 16.08 months). In the late postoperative period 34 (87.74%) patients were in NYHA functional class I. Two late deaths (5.12%) occurred, and two (5.12%) patients were reoperated on. Linearilized rates of the reoperation and thromboembolism events were 1.6% and 0.8% per patient/year, respectively. Estimated survival rate was 94.87%. Echocardiographic evaluation of the pre and postoperative values demonstrated significant decrease of the left ventricular diastolic diameter (p = 0.0001), of the left ventricular systolic diameter (p = 0.0001) of the left venticular systolic diameter (p = 0.0001) and of the left atrial diameter (p = 0.0001). The postoperative Doppler echocardiograpfic studies demonstrated absence of valvular area changes at effort. It was possible to conclude that patients submitted to mitral valve repair benefited from higher survival rates and satisfactory clinical evolution.
heart valves, mitral