Early Surgery Versus Conventional Treatment for Asymptomatic Severe Mitral Regurgitation: A Propensity Analysis

The authors of this article sought to compare long-term outcome with early surgery with a conventional treatment strategy in patients with asymptomatic severe mitral regurgitation. In a propensity matched analysis of 207 pairs, they found that early surgery was associated with a lower risk of mortality (p=0.033) and cardiac events (p=0.002) than conventional treatment. In additional Cox proportional hazard analyses, the benefit of early early surgery seemed to be restricted to patients >50 years old.