Anticoagulants and mitral valvotomy: a nine-year survey.

Abstract

Systemic embolism, occurring during either the operation or in the post-operative period, remains a serious complication of mitral valvotomy. It causes many deaths and those who survive it may suffer a crippling permanent disability. Since 1955 anticoagulants have been widely used at the Hill Top Hospital, Bromsgrove, for the purpose of preventing clot formation and subsequent dis- semination at operation, and the results of this therapy form the basis of this study.