Background: Many patients referred for a MitraClip intervention are finally refused for this intervention, and data are very scarce on their outcomes. Our study sought to determine the characteristics and outcomes of patients who are referred to a mitral valve clinic and are finally denied from a percutaneous mitral edge-to-edge repair.
Methods: A total of 210 patients referred to our clinic for severe mitral regurgitation were retrospectively analyzed. Fifty-seven patients underwent a MitraClip procedure. For exploratory purposes, a propensity-matched cohort comparing the patients accepted for a MitraClip procedure and those refused for any mitral intervention was analyzed.
Results: Among the 153 patients who were refused for MitraClip, 46% had functional MR, 42% had degenerative MR, and 11% had mixed disease. Reasons for denial included unfavorable anatomy, patient refusal, mitral valve surgery referral, cardiac resynchronization therapy, other advanced heart failure therapies, and palliative care. After a mean follow-up of 13 months, 50% were in New York Heart Association class I or II, 63% had less than severe MR, and mortality rate was 29%. In the propensity-matched cohort, there was no difference in symptoms improvement, but there was less overall mortality (P=.01), cardiovascular mortality (P<.01) and severe MR (P<.01) in the MitraClip group.
Conclusions: A multidisciplinary heart team evaluation for complex MR patients can be useful not solely for selecting the ideal MitraClip eligible patients, but also to select the best treatment strategy in each individualized context.
Keywords: MitraClip; edge-to-edge; heart team; mitral regurgitation; percutaneous.