Heart Disease: Mitral Valve Disorder

Yesterday, I just read several posts about heart disease. Experts say that heart disease is already the world’s biggest killer and is becoming more and more common. Nowadays, many people are suffering heart problems and mitral valve is one of the most common among heart diseases. Mitral valve refers to “inflow valve” for the main pumping chamber of the heart, the left ventricle. It will be happened if the valve between the heart-left upper chamber and the heart-left lower chamber does not close properly.

Mitral valve plays an important role for the main chamber of pumping the heart. Although mitral valve prolapse is a lifelong disorder, many people with this condition never have symptoms. However, people may be surprised that they have a heart abnormality when it had diagnosed. When the mitral valve in the heart is tight or incompetent, then it may need to be replaced. Mitral valve replacement is a solution of treating a valve problem by removing the damaged mitral valve and implanting an artificial valve. It is called mitral valve surgery.

Mitral valve disease can also be treated through mitral valve repair, which is a surgery to preserve the patient’s valve. It is done by the surgeon modifying the original valve to eliminate backward blood flow. Moreover, the surgeons can also repair the valve by reconnecting valve leaflets or by removing excess valve tissue so that the leaflets can close tightly. This kind of treatment is more recommended option for the most mitral valve patients; the infected valve will only need to be repaired into a good condition. Therefore, valve replacement is only necessary in extreme cases when valve repair is impossible.