Percutaneous balloon mitral valve commissurotomy: analysis of procedures and database

In recent years, percutaneous balloon mitral valve commissurotomy has become established as a nonsurgical alternative for the treatment of mitral stenosis and is used extensively in clinical practice. A PC based program has been developed to calculate data from clinical tracings, analyze and store them in a database. The data stored permit a detailed description of the procedure, its results and complications. The system imposes a systematic procedural approach by the cardiologists. The database is very useful for quality assurance testing as well as clinical research studies on patients treated with percutaneous mitral valve commissurotomy. The database also provides reliable individual and statistical information on the interventional procedure.<>