Tricuspid intervention for less-than-severe regurgitation simultaneously with minimally invasive mitral valve surgery in patients with atrial fibrillation.

Background: While tackling moderate tricuspid regurgitation (TR) simultaneously with left-side heart surgery is recommended by the guidelines, the procedure is still seldom performed, especially in the minimally invasive setting. Atrial fibrillation (AF) is a known marker of both mortality and TR progression after mitral valve surgery.

Aims: This study aimed to investigatev the safety of performing tricuspid intervention and minimally invasive mitral valve surgery (MIMVS) in patients with preoperative AF.

Methods: We retrospectively analyzed data from the Polish National Registry of Cardiac Surgery Procedures collected between 2006 and 2021. We included all patients who underwent MIMVS (mini-thoracotomy, totally thoracoscopic, or robotic surgery) and had presented with moderate tricuspid regurgitation and AF preoperatively. The primary endpoint was death from any cause at 30 days and at the longest available follow-up after MIMVS with tricuspid intervention vs. MIMVS alone. We used propensity score (PS) matching to account for baseline differences between groups.

Results: We identified 1545 patients with AF undergoing MIMVS, 54.7% were men aged 66.7 (mean [standard deviation, SD], 9.2) years. Of those, 733 (47.4%) underwent concomitant tricuspid valve intervention. At 13 years of follow-up, the addition of tricuspid intervention was associated with 33% higher mortality as compared to MIMVS alone (hazard ratio [HR], 1.33; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.05-1.69; P = 0.02). PS matching resulted in identifying 565 well-balanced pairs. Concomitant tricuspid intervention did not influence long-term follow-up (HR, 1.01; 95 CI, 0.74-1.38; P = 0.94).

Conclusions: After adjusting for baseline confounders, the addition of tricuspid intervention for moderate tricuspid regurgitation to MIMVS did not increase perioperative mortality nor influence long-term survival.