Clinical efficacy of two different tricuspid annuloplasty techniques in left cardiac valve surgery

Objective: To investigate the mid-and long-term clinical effects of tricuspid valvuloplasty with the implantation of an artificial plastic ring.Methods: Data of 677 patients who had functional tricuspid regurgitation and left cardiac valve disease and underwent tricuspid valvuloplasty and left cardiac valve surgery were retrospectively.Among these patients, 353 underwent simple suture annuloplasty(group A) while the rest 324 patients underwent artificial plastic ring annuloplasty(group B).The two-year and more-than-two-year clinical and ultrasonocardiograph(UCG) follow-up data of the two groups were obtained and compared.Results: A total of 600 patients(88.6%) completed the long-term follow-up(more than two years).The two-year follow-up showed no significant difference in the incidence of mild tricuspid regurgitation between the two groups(82.2% vs.92.7%, P=0.37).However, there were significantly more cases that developed into moderate to severe tricuspid regurgitation in group A than in group B(17.8% vs.7.3%, P=0.031).The long-term follow-up revealed that the recurrence rate of tricuspid regurgitation in group B was significantly lower than that in group A(11.0% vs.25.0%, P=0.029), and the ratio of cases developing into moderate to severe tricuspid regurgitation in group A was significantly higher than that in group B(28.9% vs.9.9%, P=0.007).The comparison between the two intra-group time segments showed that the development of tricuspid regurgitation in group A was significantly increased(28.9% vs.17.8%, P=0.022), but in group B it was relatively stable(9.9% vs.7.3%, P=0.52).Conclusions: Artificial ring annuloplasty is associated with significantly less tricuspid regurgitation than simple suture annuloplasty.