Type of Surgery
Information

Last updated: 11/24/2009
Mitral valve replacement carries a less than 5% risk of death in young, healthy patients. With increased age, additional medical problems, or pulmonary hypertension the risk of death increases to 10–20%. Post-replacement the five year survival is...
80%. Patients over the age of 75 have poorer outcomes when mitral valve replacement is used to treat mitral insufficiency.
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This narrated 3D animation shows how a valve of the heart would be replaced. Heart valve replacement surgery can be done using artificial valves, heart valves taken from certain animals, or from human cadavers.
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Mitral valve replacement is a cardiac surgery procedure in which a patient’s mitral valve is replaced by a different valve. Mitral valve replacement is typically performed robotically or manually, when the valve becomes too tight (mitral valve stenosis) for blood to flow into the left ventricle, or too loose (mitral valve regurgitation) in which case blood can leak into the left atrium and back up into the lung. Some individuals have a combination of mitral valve stenosis and mitral valve regurgitation or simply one or the other.
A mitral valve replacement/repair is performed to treat severe cases of mitral valve prolapse, heart valve stenosis, or other valvular diseases. Since a mitral valve replacement is an open heart surgical procedure, it requires placing the patient on cardiopulmonary bypass to stop blood flow through the heart when it is opened up.
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Heart surgery is quite a big event and people are keen to know about their particular surgeon.
-Andy Owens
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