Anson J. Conrad Smith

Practical Implementation of the Coronary Revascularization Heart Team

Multidisciplinary decision making has been shown to be highly effective in various aspects of medicine, most notably with the concept of tumor boards and transplant committees.1 ,2 The most updated guidelines for percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI), published jointly by the American College of Cardiology Foundation, American Heart Association, and the Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions, assign a class IC recommendation for the use of a collaborative Heart Team approach in the treatment of patients with complex coronary artery disease (CAD).3 The guidelines assert that this recommendation is based on retrospective analyses showing that patients with complex CAD referred for revascularization based on a Heart Team consensus have improved mortality compared with patients merely assigned to a particular strategy in the context of their trial enrollment. Despite the suggestion of improved mortality in this retrospective comparison, the Heart Team approach has not been adopted widely in the current clinical practice of cardiovascular medicine. This multidisciplinary innovation remains in its infancy, and numerous questions remain about its practicality, feasibility, and efficacy. For several reasons, there remains significant variability in the care delivered to patients with complex CAD.4 Numerous reports show that although differences in patient characteristics may explain some of the variability in revascularization decisions, much of this variance is physician driven, such as practicing in a fee-for-service model or high-risk anatomy for low-volume operators.4,5 As emphasis grows on informed decision making and patient-centered care, a critical evaluation of these difficult questions will be essential to discovering whether there is a clinically meaningful effect of the Heart Team approach on patients with complex CAD. Although the longstanding use of tumor boards in the field of oncology represents a functioning model of interdisciplinary care on which the Heart Team may be based, it is critical …

A pathoanatomic approach to the management of mitral regurgitation

Mitral regurgitation remains the most common global valvular heart disease. From otherwise unsuspecting healthy patients without overt symptoms to those with recalcitrant heart failure, mitral valve (MV) disease touches millions of patients per year. While MV prolapse without regurgitation remains benign, once regurgitation begins, quantification of severity is related to prognosis. Understanding the mechanism of regurgitation guides appropriate treatment. Current management guidelines emphasize early therapy after careful assessment of both anatomy and severity of mitral regurgitation. The objective of this review is to provide an update on the treatment of MV disease and to offer additional granularity on pathoanatomic decision making that may aid a more precise application of optimal guideline-directed therapy of primary and secondary mitral regurgitation.

Echocardiographic evaluation and guidance for MitraClip procedure

Transcatheter mitral valve repair using the MitraClip system (Abbott, Abbott Park, Il, USA) has become a world-wide, well-established therapeutic alternative to treat symptomatic patients with severe mitral regurgitation and prohibitive surgical risk. This article offers a comprehensive review of the important clinical and imaging aspects related to the patient selection, imaging evaluation and intraprocedural guidance for optimal results using this transcatheter device therapy. This article provides an updated framework for the interested practitioners summarizing the current understanding and applications for this device based on the current literature and growing experience of this technique.