Mitral valve replacement The choice of which valve type to use depends upon the patient's age, medical condition, preferences with medication, and lifestyle. New Developments (2014 -2017): Transcatheter mitral valve replacement or TMVR involves human heart mitral valve replacement without recourse to open-heart surgery. TMVR treats mitral valve stenosis and/or mitral valve regurgitation leading to mitral insufficiency. TMVR, initially developed by the company Tendyne (a subsidiary of Jean Boulle Medtech Ltd) for open-heart high risk patients is expected to replace traditional mitral valve replacement surgery in the longer term. The Tendyne mitral valve is placed inside a beating heart via a transcatheter at
Mitral valve prolapse Two- and three-dimensional echocardiography are particularly valuable as they allow visualization of the mitral leaflets relative to the mitral annulus. This allows measurement of the leaflet thickness and their displacement relative to the annulus. Thickening of the mitral leaflets >5 mm and leaflet displacement >2 mm indicates classic mitral valve prolapse. Prolapsed mitral valves are classified into several subtypes, based on leaflet thickness, type of connection to the mitral annulus, and concavity. Subtypes can be described as classic, nonclassic, symmetric, asymmetric, flail, or non-flail. All measurements below refer to adult patients; applying them to children may be misleading. Prolapse occurs