Surgical options for the treatment of degenerative, ischemic, inflammatory, and functional mitral valve diseases have expanded greatly in recent decades. Still, a dilemma exists with employing prosthetic mitral valves – in that mechanical valves exhibit good durability but require anticoagulation versus the unpredictable durability of biological valve prostheses. Over the past few years, it has become clear that reconstruction of the mitral valve with autologous tissues effectively addresses this dilemma, with no need for anticoagulation and excellent durability, combining the best qualities of both prosthetic options without the disadvantages. Moreover, newer repair strategies, such as autologous pericardial leaflet augmentation and artificial choral replacement have expanded reparative approaches into virtually all pathologies, with excellent long-term results as compared to prosthetic valve replacement. At present, mitral repair is becoming the dominant procedure for treatment of virtually all patients with mitral valve disease. This book is designed to illustrate contemporary and sometimes diverse surgical techniques for various types of mitral valve repair with contributions from many of the leaders in the field.

Mitral Valve Repair and the recently published Aortic Root Surgery are book publications arising from the Berlin Heart Valve Symposium 2008 entitled “ The Biological Solution”. The Mitral Valve Repair session was postponed to June 2009 and was featured as the Berlin Mitral Valve Symposium at the joint meeting of the Society for Heart Valve Diseases and the Heart Valve Society of America in Berlin. The book contains a collection of proceedings on current techniques and outcomes of mitral valve repair by many of the experts in this field which provide an authoritative reference source for cardiac surgeons, family practitioners and clinicians.