Clinical Perspectives on Mitral Valve Prolapse
JOHN D. MURPHY M.D.1
DONALD C. FYLER M.D.2
1 Assistant in Cardiology, Children's Hospital Medical Center, Instructor in Pediatrics, Harvard Medical School
2 Associate Chief, Cardiology Children's Hospital Medical Center, Associate Professor of Pediatrics, Harvard Medical School
The devastation caused by the current epidemic of mitral valve prolapse (MVP) was emphasized recently when an irate psychiatrist asked why cardiologists were "terrorizing the populace." He had spent a tedious afternoon with two patients with MVP who were reacting poorly to the news that they might drop dead. The psychiatrist's problems were forgotten until a recent article resurrected the fact that 17% of the US population (37.7 million people) may have MVP and are also, presumably, at risk for sudden death.1 A swirl of thoughts around the costs of echocardiograms, fees for cardiac consultation, investments in echocardiography companies, and the need to train more psychiatrists fluttered by in a panorama of "Big Bucks" regional MVP centers and an act of Congress to establish a National Institute of Prolapse.
