Percutaneous mitral balloon valvulotomy or balloon valvuloplasty? It's not just semantics anymore.

In this issue of Circulation, Abascal and coworkers' present another in a series of articles in which they conclude that echocardiographic evidence of thickening, immobility, subvalvular fusion, and calcification of the stenotic mitral valve predicts a low immediate success rate of mitral balloon dilation.1-5 These findings are particularly valuable to those who treat mitral stenosis in the cardiac catheterization laboratory. In roles reversed from those of years past, interventional cardiologists