Between August 1988 and October 1992, 1,052 patients underwent 1,522 valve procedures in our institution. Their mean age was 32.69 years (range 1-90). The etiology was rheumatic in 724 (68.8%), congenital in 120 (11.4%), degenerative in 99 (9.4%), infective in 58 (5.5%) and ischemic in 17 (1.6%). The mean preoperative functional class (NYHA) was 2.95 and 780 (74.1%) were in sinus rhythm. Repair was possible in 885 (58.1%) valves. The rate of repair versus replacement was 94.5% for the tricuspid, 56.2% for the mitral and 43.6% for the aortic valve. The total hospital mortality was 4.18%. For isolated mitral surgery it was 2.94%, for isolated aortic 4.12% and for isolated tricuspid 15%. Double valve surgery carried a mortality of 3% and triple valve surgery 13%. Hospital mortality for isolated mitral and isolated aortic surgery was lower for repair than for replacement (1.5% vs. 5% and 0 vs. 6.8%). The follow-up was 94.65% complete. The total incidence of embolic events was 2.93% with an actuarial freedom at 48 months of 92.71 +/- 5.35% for repair, 88.22 +/- 6.26% for replacement and 90.31 +/- 5.65% for patients with repair and replacement. Late mortality was 4.5%. The actuarial survival excluding hospital deaths was 94.89 +/- 2.10% for repair, 86.84 +/- 2.84% for replacement and 91.33 +/- 2.73% for the mixed group. The reoperation rate was higher for repair (13%) than for replacement (0.1%). This rate was highest for the rheumatic mitral patients with an age below 20 years (25.2%).(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

How to cite: Gometza, B., Kumar, N., Prabhakar, G., Gallo, R., Kandeel, M., & Duran, C. M. (1993). The challenge of valve surgery in a developing population. The Journal of heart valve disease, 2(2), 194–199.