Asan Medical Center, First 100 Cases of Mitral Valve Clip Procedure in Korea

Mr. Kim (82 years old, male), diagnosed with mitral valve regurgitation, had already undergone two heart surgeries but was admitted to the intensive care unit of a nearby hospital due to severe respiratory distress that started again. Instead of open-heart surgery, Mr. Kim was safely treated with a procedure that involved inserting a thin catheter through the femoral vein to attach a clip to the mitral valve. Thanks to this simple procedure, his recovery period was short, and he was discharged just three days after the procedure, maintaining good health.

Professor Kim Daehee and Professor Kang Doyoon’s team from the Department of Cardiology at Seoul Asan Medical Center announced on the 18th that they recently completed the 100th mitral valve clip procedure in Korea, following the successful first procedure in 2020. Mitral valve regurgitation is a condition where the mitral valve, located at the entrance from the left atrium to the left ventricle, does not close completely due to heart muscle damage or aging, causing blood to flow backward within the heart.

Asan Medical Center explained that despite the patients’ average age being 78 years old and more than half of them being high-risk patients, the procedure achieved a 97% success rate and a 99% one-month survival rate.

The mitral valve clip procedure involves clipping the two leaflets that make up the mitral valve to eliminate the gap that occurs each time the valve opens and closes, thereby reducing blood regurgitation. Without open-heart surgery, a thin catheter is inserted through the femoral vein to reach the inside of the heart, and the exact position of the clip and the anatomical structure of the mitral valve are confirmed in real-time using 3D ultrasound before attaching the clip to the opened mitral valve.

Until now, severe mitral valve regurgitation patients underwent open-heart surgery to surgically repair or replace the mitral valve. However, surgery was often difficult or abandoned for high-risk patients who were elderly or had other comorbidities due to the high surgical risk.

Seoul Asan Medical Center’s Heart Hospital started the mitral valve clip procedure in January 2020, the first in Korea, to safely treat patients for whom surgery was difficult. In the first year of introduction, 14 mitral valve clip procedures were successfully performed, followed by 26 in 2021, 38 in 2022, and 22 cases achieved by October this year.

The oldest patient to receive the mitral valve clip procedure so far was a 93-year-old who underwent the procedure in March this year and has been living healthily since.

Among the patients who received the mitral valve clip procedure at Seoul Asan Medical Center, two out of five had secondary mitral valve regurgitation caused by myocardial infarction or heart failure. One out of two patients had atrial fibrillation, and 60% had hypertension, 20% had diabetes, and 17% had a history of myocardial infarction.

Additionally, about 30% were high-risk patients who had previously undergone heart procedures or surgeries, yet the procedure success rate was 97%, and the one-month survival rate after the procedure was 99%.

Professor Kang Doyoon of the Department of Cardiology at Seoul Asan Medical Center said, “Since Seoul Asan Medical Center’s Heart Hospital performed the first mitral valve clip procedure in Korea, we have successfully completed the 100th procedure in just three years. This is thanks to the extensive experience in interventional procedures and echocardiography accumulated over many years, as well as strong teamwork.”

The mitral valve clip procedure uses the MitraClip, developed by Abbott in the United States. The MitraClip was first developed in 2003 and received FDA approval in the U.S. in 2013. It was recognized as a new medical technology in Korea in 2019 and has been available for patient use since 2020.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.