Preoperative left ventricular end systolic dimension as a predictor of postoperative ventricular dysfunction in children with mitral regurgitation.

The timing of surgery has been a major problem in the management of chronic severe mitral regurgitation (MR). In adults, because of poor prognosis of postoperative left ventricular (LV) dysfunction, sequential echocardiographic assessment of LV function for optimal operation time is recommended. 2 However, in children, therapeutic guidelines of chronic MR are less well defined and severe symptoms are often used as the indication for surgery. Furthermore, report on the change of LV function after mitral valve (MV) surgery is very limited. Therefore we analysed the records of children who had MV surgery for severe MR to evaluate the change of LV function and to identify any potential risk variable for late postoperative LV dysfunction.