Closed Mitral Valvotomy: Celebrating 100 Years of Surgical History

Abstract

The year 2023 marks the 100th anniversary of the first successful valvotomy for mitral valve stenosis by Elliott C. Cutler in 1923. Closed-chest mitral valve commissurotomy developed further before being replaced by an open procedure after the advent of the heart-lung machine. Currently, because of the almost complete disappearance of rheumatic disease in the Western World, mitral commissurotomies are infrequently performed in those countries, although the procedure—either closed or open—is still performed in developing countries and select patients. This review retraces the 100-year journey from a historic operation to the cur-rent era—a milestone in the treatment of patients with mitral stenosis.