The mitral paradox of choice

Excerpt

The implementation of a multidisciplinary heart team for mitral valve disease, ‘the mitral valve heart team’, is reported by Heuts and colleagues in the present issue of this journal [1]. This is the first study presenting the implementation of such an approach. In 2016, a total of 158 patients were included and discussed in their mitral valve heart team. Of these patients, 67 were treated surgically, 20 were treated by a transcatheter intervention and 71 were treated conservatively. This study did not aim to document whether the new mitral valve heart team approach would lead to a better clinical outcome. Their future research programme will include a larger number of patients and will focus on a comparison between this new dedicated heart team approach and patients treated by their former heart team approach as a historical control group. …