Functional mitral valve regurgitation is a significant complication of end-stage cardiomyopathy.

Causes of functional mitral valve regurgitation include age, high blood pressure, cardiomyopathy, congenital heart defects, trauma and use of certain medications.
Functional Mitral Valve Regurgitation is a significant complication of end-stage cardiomyopathy.
The main goal of functional mitral regurgitation treatment is to slow or reverse ventricular remodelling, decrease the frequency of hospitalization for congestive heart failure, slow progression to advanced heart failure (time to transplant) and improve survival rate.
Davide Stolfo, MD and his team conducted a study to assess the clinical and prognostic effect of early functional mitral valve regurgitation improvement on outcome of idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy (IDC) patients.
The term cardiomyopathy refers to the abnormality of heart muscle. In dilated cardiomyopathy or DCM the left ventricle gets dilated and can't pump blood as well as a healthy heart can. Dilated cardiomyopathy can be life-threatening for some people. DCM can contribute to heart failure, irregular heartbeats (arrhythmias), blood clots or sudden death (in few cases). Dilated cardiomyopathy affects people of all ages but most common between the ages 20 and 60 years. DCM also occurs in infants and children.
a) Enlarged heart with pulmonary edema
c) Signs of mitral and tricuspid regurgitation
470 patients with idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy with available FMR data at baseline and after 6 ± 2 months from 1988 to 2009 were enrolled for the study. Based on the evolution of functional mitral valve regurgitation, patients were grouped into 3 categories
a) Stable absent-mild Functional Mitral Valve Regurgitation
b) Early Functional Mitral Valve Regurgitation improvement
c) Persistence/early development of moderate-severe Functional Mitral Valve Regurgitation
38% of the patients in the study had moderate-severe functional mitral valve regurgitation. Better survival rate was seen among patients with early functional mitral valve regurgitation improvement. 6 month follow up analysis revealed FMR improvement was associated with better prognosis.
Researchers concluded that idiopathic dilated cardiomyopathy patients who received optimal medical treatment, early improvement of FMR was frequent and emerged as a favorable independent prognostic factor.
Study co-authors include Marco Merlo, Bruno Pinamonti, Stefano Poli, Marta Gigli, Giulia Barbati, Enrico Fabris, Andrea Di Lenarda, Gianfranco Sinagra.
The study results are published in The American Journal of Cardiology.
Source-Medindia