String-plucking as a mechanism of chordal rupture during balloon mitral valvuloplasty using Inoue balloon catheter

Percutaneous transvenous mitral commissurotomy using the Inoue technique was performed in a 59-year-old female with mitral stenosis and a severely calcified mitral leaflets. Although not entrapped in the subvalvular apparatus, the balloon catheter was deviated away from the mitral orifice-apex axis of the left ventricle during the inflation of the proximal balloon, which plucked and severed the chordae tendineae of the posterior mitral leaflet and resulted in severe mitral regurgitation. Cathet. Cardiovasc. Intervent. 47:213–217, 1999. © 1999 Wiley-Liss, Inc.