Mitral and aortic valve replacement using mechanical heart valves.
An artificial heart valve is a device implanted in the heart of a patient with valvular heart disease. When one of the four heart valves malfunctions, the medical choice may be to replace the natural valve with an artificial valve. This requires open-heart surgery. Natural heart valves become dysfunctional for a variety of pathological causes. As a result of a number of disease processes, both acquired and congenital, any one of the four heart valves may malfunction and result in either stenosis (impeded forward flow) and/or backward flow (regurgitation). Either process burdens the heart and may lead to serious problems including heart failure. A mechanical heart valve is intended to replace a diseased heart valve with its prosthetic equivalent. Mechanical heart valves are prosthetics designed to replicate the function of the natural valves of the human heart. The human heart contains four valves: tricuspid valve, pulmonic valve, mitral valve and aortic valve. Their main purpose is to maintain unimpeded forward flow through the heart and from the heart into the major blood vessels connected to the heart, the pulmonary artery and the aorta. Biological heart valves, especially from pigs are also implanted but they possesses the risk of organ rejection. 📷•Medicogram•
Replacement of the heart valves, especially in the case of the aortic valve, doesnt necessarily require open heart surgery. This can be done using a catheter to track through a small incision made in the femoral artery to reach the heart and deliver the artificial heart valve, radiopaque markers are used to position properly. In the case of the aortic valve a TAVR (Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement) surgery is performed and is a lot less invasive than open heart surgery and this similar surgery has been done to replace the mitral valve also.
