Cardiac Valve Diseases and Treatments

The heart's four valves open and close roughly 100,000 times a day, and when they narrow or leak — conditions known as aortic stenosis and mitral regurgitation — the consequences range from progressive heart failure to sudden death. Cardiologists and cardiac surgeons have developed two main repair strategies: open surgical valve replacement and the less invasive transcatheter approach, in which a new valve is threaded through a catheter and deployed without stopping the heart. Echocardiography serves as the central diagnostic tool, guiding decisions about when to intervene and how to evaluate prosthetic valves once they are in place. Active research is now focused on determining which patients benefit most from transcatheter versus surgical repair across different risk profiles, how to better quantify valve regurgitation severity, and how to extend durable valve options to younger patients who will likely outlive their prostheses.

Works

176,233

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1,956,606

Keywords

Transcatheter Aortic-Valve ReplacementSurgical Aortic-Valve ReplacementValvular RegurgitationEchocardiography GuidelinesAortic StenosisMitral Regurgitation