Heart valve repair Heart valve repair Heart valve repair is a surgical technique used to fix defects in heart valves in valvular heart diseases, and provides an alternative to valve replacement. Without further specification, it refers to native heart valve repair, rather than repair of an artificial heart valve. Valvuloplasty is the widening of a stenotic valve using a balloon catheter. Types include: Commissurotomy of cardiac valves is called "valvulotomy". "Mitral valve repair" is mainly used to treat stenosis (narrowing) or regurgitation (leakage) of the mitral valve. Aortic valve repair is a surgical procedure used to correct some aortic valve disorders as an
Mitral insufficiency subsequent displacement of the papillary muscles and the dilatation of the mitral valve annulus. Rheumatic fever (RF) and Marfan's syndrome are other typical causes. Mitral valve stenosis (MVS) can sometimes be a cause of mitral regurgitation (MR) in the sense that a stenotic valve (calcified and with restricted range of movement) allows backflow (regurgitation) if it is too stiff and misshapen to close completely. Most MVS is caused by RF, so one can say that MVS is sometimes the proximal cause of MI/MR (that is, stenotic MI/MR) and that RF is often the distal cause of MVS, MI/MR, or both.