PURE MITRAL INSUFFICIENCY OF RHEUMATIC ORIGIN IN ADULTS

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
In the group of 44 autopsied cases of rheumatic heart disease the authors found 4 cases of pure and isolated mitral valve incompetence without deformity of any other valve, pericarditis, hypertension, coronary artery disease, syphilis or any other type of cardiac involvement except rheumatic (with the exception of bacterial endocarditis in one instance). All 4 patients died in congestive heart failure. Thus, all 4 patients apparently died of no cause other than those secondary to pure mitral valve incompetence. Modern standard texts and reference works on cardiology, as well as the current literature, create the impression that, in adults, fatalities from heart failure occur but rarely during the stage of pure mitral insufficiency. The evidence here presented tends to show that such an impression is probably incorrect, and that death from this cause may well occur in adults, even in advanced middle life, more frequently than is currently believed. The diagnostic features of pure and isolated mitral insufficiency are discussed. Sclerosis of the pulmonary vasclature seen in some patients with mitral stenosis was not observed in these cases of pure mitral insufficiency.

This publication has 5 references indexed in Scilit: