Sixty-six (66 patients) with endomyocardial fibrosis underwent surgical treatment at the Heart Institute between January 1978 and June 1990. A study involving two subgroups was designed with the aim to compare the operative techniques; 1) patients submitted to endocardiectomy and valvar substitution; and 2) patients submitted to endocardiectomy and valvoplasty. Clinical, radiologic, hemodynamic, surgical and postoperative parameters were included in the protocol. It is a retrospective study, an statistical analysis was performed using Pearson's X² test and Loog-Rank test. At this time, the comparative analysis does not reveal significant statistical differences between the two subgroups, both regarding nosocomial mortality and late survival, however comparison of the actuarial survival curves allows to identify a tendency towards improvement, with decrease in the nosocomial mortality and a great late survival, when the conservative technique for surgical treatment of endomocardial fibrosis is used. Therefore, endocardiectomy associated to atrioventricular valvoplasty for surgical treatment of the patients with endomyocardial fibrosis is recommended.
endomyocardial fibrosis; heart valves