Sustainable myocardial recovery after mitral reconstruction for left ventricular noncompaction.

Noncompaction of the left ventricle is a rare congenital cardiomyopathy characterized by prematurely arrested compaction of the endocardial and myocardial fibers. Although systolic heart failure is assured, treatment has been traditionally limited to palliative medical therapy or transplantation. We present the first report of long-term clinical and echocardiographic follow-up (50 months) showing sustained myocardial recovery after the use of mitral valve annuloplasty as the primary treatment for severe mitral regurgitation associated with left ventricular noncompaction. Copyright (c) 2010 The Society of Thoracic Surgeons. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.