Critique of cardiac rehabilitation progress and in-hospital outcomes following mitral transcatheter edge-to-edge repair: a call for comprehensive assessment and long-term follow-up.

Hori et al. (2025) present a valuable contribution to the growing body of literature on cardiac rehabilitation (CR) following mitral transcatheter edge-to-edge repair (M-TEER). Their study highlights the importance of early rehabilitation progress during hospitalization, but raises several concerns regarding its comprehensiveness and generalizability. The study's focus on ambulation as a primary marker of progress overlooks other crucial CR components such as exercise intensity, resistance training, and psychological factors. This critique emphasizes the need for a more comprehensive assessment of rehabilitation interventions, including psychological screenings and longitudinal follow-up data on functional status and quality of life. The absence of a multi-center, prospective design limits the study's external validity, and there is a notable lack of exploration of predictors for unplanned hospitalizations, which may significantly impact CR outcomes. Incorporating a broader range of assessments, such as hemodynamic profiling and psychological evaluations, would provide a more holistic understanding of CR's role in post-procedural recovery and guide future research in this field.