Description of regional mitral annular nonplanarity in healthy human subjects: a novel methodology.
Publication/Presentation Date
9-1-2007
Abstract
OBJECTIVE: Finite-element analysis demonstrates that the nonplanar shape of the mitral annulus diminishes mitral leaflet stress. It has therefore been postulated that repair with annuloplasty rings that maintain the nonplanar shape of the annulus could increase repair durability. Although the global nonplanarity of the mitral annulus has been adequately characterized, design of such a ring requires a quantitative description of regional annular geometry. By using real-time 3-dimensional echocardiography in conjunction with available image processing software, we developed a methodology for describing regional annular geometry and applied it to the characterization of the normal human mitral annulus.
METHODS: Five healthy volunteers underwent mitral valve imaging with real-time 3-dimensional echocardiography. Regional annular height was calculated at 36 evenly spaced intervals.
RESULTS: Maximal annular height/commissural width ratio was found to occur at the midpoint of the anterior annulus in all cases. These values averaged 26% +/- 3.1%, whereas those for the midposterior annulus averaged 18% +/- 3.0%. The average commissural width was 35.2 +/- 6.0 mm. Although substantial spatial heterogeneity was observed, regional annular height at a given rotational position was highly conserved among subjects when normalized to commissural width.
CONCLUSIONS: These quantitative imaging and analytic techniques demonstrate that the normal human mitral annulus is regionally heterogeneous in its nonplanarity, and they establish a means of describing annular geometry at a regional level. With wider application, these techniques may be used both to characterize pathologic annular geometry and to optimize the design of mitral valve annuloplasty devices.
Volume
134
Issue
3
First Page
644
Last Page
648
ISSN
1097-685X
Published In/Presented At
Ryan, L. P., Jackson, B. M., Enomoto, Y., Parish, L., Plappert, T. J., St John-Sutton, M. G., Gorman, R. C., & Gorman, J. H., 3rd (2007). Description of regional mitral annular nonplanarity in healthy human subjects: a novel methodology. The Journal of thoracic and cardiovascular surgery, 134(3), 644–648. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jtcvs.2007.04.001
Disciplines
Medicine and Health Sciences
PubMedID
17723812
Department(s)
Department of Medicine, Cardiology Division
Document Type
Article