Difficult mitral valvuloplasty: an "over the wire" modification of Inoue technique.

Failure to cross the mitral valve remains an important cause of the technical failure in performing mitral valvuloplasty with the Inoue technique, especially during initial experience of the operator. We report two such cases where conventional methods failed and an "over the wire" modification of the Inoue technique had to be utilized. This particular modification can be beneficial in the rare cases where negotiating the Inoue balloon across the mitral valve is particularly difficult.