TUTORIAL

How to analyze and assess the mitral valve based on CT images

Transcatheter Mitral Valve therapies can be a promising alternative to invasive procedures for mitral valve regurgitation in high-risk patients. The mitral valve has a complex anatomical structure, which creates technical challenges in terms of patient variability (or variety of mitral valve morphologies). The latter determines how difficult it will be to deploy the artificial valve. At this stage, a transcatheter approach for the mitral valve is still under research and clinical trials. However, understanding the anatomy of the patient to estimate how it could interact with a prototype of the device plays an important role for the development stages. Computed Tomography (CT) can be used for this assessment due to its high special resolution. This allows for a thorough analysis of the valve and its relationship with the neighboring structures.