Patients with severe mitral regurgitation (MR) who received mitral valve repair surgery were observed to have a better emotional and physical wellbeing than those who did not.
MR occurs when the heart's mitral valve does not shut tightly, allowing blood to flow back into the heart, the Society of Thoracic Surgeons reported. Past research has shown one in every four patients suffering from the condition experience poor psycho-emotional status (PES), high levels of anxiety, and traumatic stress levels.
Researchers conducted a questionnaire-based analysis that looked at PES and health-related quality of life in 131 patients before and six months after surgery for MR. The results were compared with those of 62 patients with MR who did not receive surgery and 36 control participants without MR.
The findings showed PES was poorer among the study participants that ultimately received heart valve repair surgery when compared with the other two groups. After the six month follow-up period measurements in patients who underwent mitral valve correction generally improved to the levels observed in the healthy controls; no change was observed in the patients who did not receive the surgery.
"Another important finding of our study relates to 'asymptomatic' MR patients, who did not experience any physical symptoms- like shortness of breath or fatigue-prior to the surgery, yet suffered from elevated psycho-emotional symptoms. Asymptomatic patients indeed improved after the surgical correction, thus exhibiting a better and normalized psycho-emotional status," said Tali Bayer-Topilsky, from JDC-Myers-Brookdale Institution.
Further results showed there was no difference in these outcomes between standard and minimally invasive valve repair surgeries.
"Early surgery in patients without symptoms or left ventricular dysfunction has been previously considered as providing no direct patient benefit, but our study results show how wrong this concept is," said Dr. Maurice Enriquez-Sarano, from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester. "Patients with a serious valve disease often suffer from the psychological consequences of leaving that disease untreated. Eliminating the valve disease reduces this suffering, further supporting the concept of early MR repair."
The findings were reported in a recent edition of The Annals of Thoracic Surgery.
