Percutaneous mitral valve repair and replacement: complementary or competitive techniques?

As transcatheter mitral replacement technologies have recently been applied in early clinical trials, the question as to whether valve implantation would have the potential to become the leading percutaneous mitral valve therapy has been raised. The aim of this report is to give an overview of the different peculiarities of percutaneous replacement and repair techniques, and to predict whether the two approaches will have a complementary rather than a competitive clinical role in the near future.