Heart Valve Diseases
Anatomical structure of the heart
The heart consists of four chambers, two small at the top (atria) and two large chambers at the bottom (ventricles). The mitral valve is located between the atrium and ventricle in the left region of the heart and ensures the outflow of clean blood. Between the atrium and ventricle in the right region of the heart, there is the tricuspid valve and provides the outflow of dirty blood. Also, from the left ventricle part of the heart, the main aortic vein arises and there is the aortic valve. The pulmonary artery arises from the right ventricle of the heart and the pulmonary valve is found. As a result, the heart has four valves and four chambers: mitral, tricuspid, aortic, and pulmonary.
What are heart valve diseases?
In a normal working person, the heart contracts an average of one hundred thousand times a day, pumping the dirty blood to the lungs to be cleaned and the whole body to use the clean blood. During each pumping of the heart, the heart valves open and close synchronously. However, rarely due to congenital, mostly acquired (advanced age, infection, rheumatic fever, hypertension, heart muscle diseases) reasons, the heart valves cannot fully perform their closing and opening functions. In other words, there is either stenosis and/or insufficiency (mitral, tricuspid, aortic and pulmonary valve stenosis and/or insufficiency) of the valves we call heart valve diseases.
When there is stenosis in the heart valves, the blood cannot easily go to the parts of the body where it needs to go, and when there is insufficiency, the blood leaks backwards from where it goes. This situation tires the heart day by day and over time increases its volume (cardiac hypertrophy) and impairs its function. Heart valve diseases usually progress slowly and can be asymptomatic for many years.
Treatment of heart valve diseases
Since heart valve diseases are mechanical problems, they cannot be treated with drugs, drug treatments can only provide progression of the disease or alleviation of disease symptoms. However, in the long term, surgical intervention in the form of repair or complete replacement (bioprosthesis) of the heart valve will be required. For this reason, it is necessary to determine the time of surgery correctly by monitoring valve patients with a number of examinations (ECG, Angiography, ECO).
