Mitral Valve Disease

Mitral regurgitation (MR) is one of the most prevalent valve disorders and has numerous etiologies. Diagnosis and optimal management of MR requires integration of valve disease and heart failure specialists, MV cardiac surgeons, interventional cardiologists with expertise in structural heart disease, and imaging experts. The introduction of transcatheter MV therapies has highlighted the need for a consensus approach to pragmatic clinical trial design and uniform endpoint definitions to evaluate outcomes in patients with MR. The Mitral Valve Academic Research Consortium is a collaboration between leading academic research organizations and physician-scientists specializing in MV disease from the United States and Europe. Three in-person meetings were held in Virginia and New York during which 44 heart failure, valve, and imaging experts, MV surgeons and interventional cardiologists, clinical trial specialists and statisticians, and representatives from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration considered all aspects of MV pathophysiology, prognosis, and therapies, culminating in a 2-part document describing consensus recommendations for clinical trial design (Part 1) and endpoint definitions (Part 2) to guide evaluation of transcatheter and surgical therapies for MR.

Note: paragraph extracted from MVARC Part 2, available through the link below.