[Long-term course of tricuspid insufficiency operated during the surgical correction of mitral and mitro-aortic valve diseases].

This study concerns 120 patients with tricuspid incompetence (TI) combined with mitral or mitral-aortic valve disease. This second part is devoted to the 72 patients whose TI was corrected together with the mitral-aortic valve lesions, and the long-term post-operative course (average 40 months) was analysed. The results were correlated with pre-operatice clinical intensity of the TI: un unfavourable course (persistent TI and right ventricular failure) was noted in 56% of the cases of TI judged to be intense and in 29% only of the cases of TI judged to be clinically negligible (p is less than 0.5). The course varied according to the mode of tricuspid valve repair with a good long-term result in 37% of the 30 cases with Kay's annuloplasty, 62% of the 26 prosthetic valve replacements and 69% of the 13 cases treated by Carpentier's annuloplasty. This latter technique seems to represent the most efficient means of correction for TI, when the anatomical lesions allow for it. In the group of the patients studied, the course is independent from the degree of heart enlargement and from the pulmonary artery pressure level before operation.