[Surgery of acquired heart valve diseases in France: developments in a 10-year period. A multicentric study].

A multicenter study compares the surgery of acquired valvular diseases in France in 1974 and 1984. This study concerns etiology, surgical procedures and postoperative results within 3 months after operation. 2718 observations issued from 20 medical and surgical centers are divided in 2 groups: the first includes 856 patients who underwent surgical operation in 1974, the other group with 1862 patients was operated on in 1984. Significant differences may be observed. The mean age is higher in 1984 (55 vs. 47 years); the rheumatismal etiology decreases from 50.2% in 1974 to 35.1% in 1984; the degenerative and dystrophic causes increase from 13.8% in 1974 to 32.9% in 1984; while the monovalvular mitral lesion is more frequent (42%) than the aortic one (32.7%) in 1974, the proportion is reversed in 1984 where 47% aortic and 34.5% mitral lesions are found; the number of surgical treatments of mitral stenoses in 1984 is half of those in 1974, but the number of surgically treated aortic stenoses and mitral regurgitations is double of those in 1974; the preoperative examination includes left-side heart catheterization in 81.1% and coronary angiography in 64% of surgically treated patients en 1984, the respective percentages en 1974 being 57.8% and 16.1%. In 1974, 27.6% of patients are in a preoperative functional stage I or II, in contrast to 42.8% in 1984. Mitral commissurotomy represents 29.3% of mitral surgery in 1974 (25.6% of them with closed operation), the respective percentage in 1984 being only 10.5% (2.5% of them with closed heart operation).(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)