30 © RADCLIFFE CARDIOLOGY 2019 Access at: www.USCjournal.com Interventional Cardiology: Structural Heart The field of mitral valve disease diagnosis and management is in constant change. New understanding of disease pathology and progression, with improvements in and increased use of sophisticated imaging modalities have led to more complex treatments. Transcatheter mitral valve repair with a MitraClip device is resulting in good outcomes in patients with primary mitral regurgitation who are at high surgical risk. 1 In primary mitral regurgitation, surgical repair of the mitral valve and its apparatus is the standard of care. However, surgical treatment of secondary mitral regurgitation has not been demonstrated to be better than medical therapy regarding improvement in quality of life or survival, and mitral valve surgery treatment has a weak class IIb recommendation according to 2017 European Society of Cardiology and American Heart Association/American College of Cardiology (ESC/ ACC/AHA) guidelines for the management of patients with valvular heart disease. 2,3 In this paper, we review recently published articles on MitraClip therapy. Pathophysiology Mitral regurgitation (MR) is classified as either primary or secondary. Primary and secondary MR are two different disease states. 3 Primary MR is the result of pathology of one or more components of the mitral valve apparatus. In patients with secondary MR, the chordae tendineae and mitral valve leaflets are structurally normal, and mitral regurgitation results from dilatation or remodeling of the left ventricle, causing either leaflet tethering and/or impaired coaptation. The main cause of the disease is the underlying cardiomyopathy, and the regurgitation is probably a signal or marker of the disease; the ventricle, not the valve, is the culprit. The presence of chronic secondary MR is associated with an impaired prognosis. 4–6 Secondary MR is strongly associated with hospitalization for heart failure (HF) and mortality despite treatment with medical therapy alone. 7,8 No data have yet demonstrated whether a lack of improvement in left ventricular function affects survival. 9,10 In patients with secondary MR, which is mainly a disease of the left ventricle, treatment options have advanced significantly. The use of transcatheter techniques for both repair and replacement is expected to expand substantially in the next few years. 1 MitraClip Procedure The percutaneous mitral valve repair procedure involves of the implantation of a dedicated device – the MitraClip – in both mitral cuspids at the same time; attachment of the leaflets helps to reduce regurgitant flow. It is performed under general anesthesia, under the guidance of transesophageal echocardiography (TEE) and fluoroscopy. A trans-septal puncture procedure is performed to gain access to the left atrium. The mitral leaflets are grasped onto the MitraClip and the device is closed, resulting in a fixed approximation of the mitral leaflets. Adequate reduction of mitral regurgitation to a grade of 2+ or less is considered successful according to intraoperative TEE. If the reduction of the degree of mitral regurgitation is still inadequate, a second device may be deployed. 11–13 Figure 1 shows the MitraClip. Abstract Patients with heart failure who have secondary severe mitral regurgitation due to left ventricular dysfunction have a poor prognosis, with high rates of rehospitalization and mortality. Percutaneous mitral valve repair using the MitraClip (Abbott) has been shown to be safe and effective in secondary severe mitral regurgitation with heart failure. The number of MitraClip procedures performed has increased significantly, as recently published large, randomized clinical studies have shown. However, these studies have drawn different conclusions. This review aims to summarize the current evidence for the MitraClip procedure and provide information for its safe and successful implementation, comparing the studies that examined the use of MitraClip versus medical therapy alone or surgical repair for severe secondary mitral regurgitation. Keywords MitraClip, secondary mitral regurgitation, heart failure, medical therapy Disclosure: Guilherme Attizzani is a consultant for Abbott Vascular. The other authors have no conflicts of interest to declare. Received: December 11, 2018 Accepted: February 8, 2019 Citation: US Cardiology Review 2019;13(1):30–4. DOI: https://doi.org/10.15420/usc.2018.19.1 Correspondence: Guilherme F Attizzani, Harrington Heart and Vascular Institute, University Hospitals, Case Medical Center, 11100 Euclid Avenue, Cleveland, OH 44106. E: Guilherme.Attizzani@UHhospitals.org Open Access: This work is open access under the CC-BY-NC 4.0 License which allows users to copy, redistribute and make derivative works for non-commercial purposes, provided the original work is cited correctly. Value of MitraClip in Reducing Functional Mitral Regurgitation Mehmet Ali Elbey, MD, Luis Augusto Palma Dallan, MD, and Guilherme Ferragut Attizzani, MD Harrington Heart and Vascular Institute, University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center, Cleveland, OH