Surgery of congenital mitral valve disease.

Congenital malformations of the mitral valve are numerous and can be confusing. The functional expression is an insufficiency, a stenosis or a combined lesion. The anatomic classification is replaced by a functional approach. Anatomy and functional manifestations are analyzed by echocardiography pre-, intra- and postoperatively. Conservative surgery is the goal but is not always possible. Surgery of mitral valve insufficiency has a better prognosis than stenosis. The most difficult malformations are parachute and hammock mitral valves. When the mitral lesion is associated with another cardiac defect, the trend is to treat all the lesions in the same operation.