Objective: It is not clear whether surgical ventricular restoration (SVR) or procedures approaching mitral complex for controlling functional mitral regurgitation (MR) affect the regional left ventricular wall function. The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the regional LV function after SVR using overlapping left ventriculoplasty (OLVP) using quantitative gated myocardial perfusion SPECT (QGS).
Patients and method: Forty-one heart failure patients, including those with ischemic cardiomyopathy (ICM) (n = 25) and non-ICM (NICM) (n = 16), underwent SVR and/or papillary muscle approximation (PMA). The rest myocardial perfusion SPECT were performed before and early after operation (mean 25.8 ± 10.6 days). These patients were divided into 4 groups based on the surgical procedures (SVR and/or PMA) and etiology of patients (ICM or NICM) as follows: SVR (with or without PMA) of ICM, SVR of NICM, PMA of ICM and PMA of NICM groups. The regional wall thickening was compared before and after the operation between the four groups.
Results: NYHA functional classes were improved after the operation in all four groups. MR grade was also improved in three groups other than SVR of the ICM group. The left ventricular basal wall thickening was improved postoperatively in following three groups (SVR of ICM: 12.7 ± 3.8% to 16.5 ± 4.6% p <0.05, PMA of ICM: 11.1 ± 4.3% to 14.9 ± 4.8% p <0.05, SVR of NICM: 5.8 ± 6.6% to 12.3 ± 6.4% p <0.05), whereas PMA of the NICM group did not show an improvement. Wall thickening in the middle and distal levels was not improved in all groups.
Conclusion: OLVP improved NYHA functional classes, and also improved the regional wall function at the basal level of the left ventricle. In contrast, lone PMA did not improve or impair the regional wall function at any of the levels.