Mitral valve repair artificial mitral valve has an elevated risk of stroke. Patients with mechanical heart valves who use warfarin for anticoagulation have to be on long-term anticoagulation therapy. This means they must go to the clinic and have a lab blood draw done, typically once a month but more frequently if the level needs to be closely monitored until it is in the therapeutic range. The therapeutic range for most adults with a mechanical valve is an INR of 2.5–3.5. Finally, artificial tissue valves will wear out – on average lasting between 10 and 15 years, requiring further surgery at an advanced
Mitral insufficiency during a cardiac cycle. Methods that have been used to assess the regurgitant fraction in mitral regurgitation include echocardiography, cardiac catheterization, fast CT scan, and cardiac MRI. The echocardiographic technique to measure the regurgitant fraction is to determine the forward flow through the mitral valve (from the left atrium to the left ventricle) during ventricular diastole, and comparing it with the flow out of the left ventricle through the aortic valve in ventricular systole. This method assumes that the aortic valve does not suffer from aortic insufficiency. Another way to quantify the degree of MR is to determine the area