Comprehensive Nursing Management of Anticoagulation and Heart Failure Surveillance in a Chinese Patient With Mirror‐Image Dextrocardia Post‐MitraClip Surgery: A First Case Report

Mitral regurgitation (MR) is the valent type of valvular heart disease, caused by primary leaflet lesions or annular dilatation secondary to left ventricular dysfunction. It can lead to a series of complications such as volume overload, exacerbated pulmonary congestion, and heart failure, significantly impacting patient prognosis. Surgical mitral valve repair or replacement is currently the gold standard for MR treatment but is associated with substantial trauma, numerous complications, and poor tolerance in elderly high-risk patients. As an emerging minimally invasive technique, transcatheter mitral valve repair with MitraClip alleviates MR by tethering the edges of the anterior and posterior leaflets to create a bileaflet orifice (Peng et al. 2025). Compared with surgical procedures, it offers advantages of minimal trauma and rapid recovery, making it more suitable for elderly high-risk patients with multiple comorbidities. Mirror-image dextrocardia is a rare anatomical variation with an incidence of approximately 1/10,000. The heart is located in the right hemithorax with the apex pointing to the right lower quadrant, and the positions of great vessels and cardiac chambers are completely reversed from normal. This unique anatomy poses significant challenges to MitraClip surgery. This article summarizes the nursing experience of the first domestic case of a patient with mirror-image dextrocardia complicated by MR who underwent MitraClip implantation, aiming to explore the key perioperative management points for such high-risk cases and provide references for future similar surgeries.