Mitral Valve Repair in Young Rheumatic Patients

Mitral valve repair surgery presents excellent immediate and late results in young patients with valve disease resulting from chronic rheumatic heart disease such as those reported in the article by Cruz et al. in this issue.

There is agreement in the literature on the lower morbidity and mortality of patients submitted to mitral repair surgery in relation to valve replacement, but there is no uniformity of results of mitral valve reconstruction in patients with lesions resulting from rheumatic fever, perhaps, due to the recurrence of new rheumatic episodes in the evolution of these patients.

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