Mitral valve regurgitation does not always require treatment. Eating a low-sodium diet can help. For most people, medicine is prescribed to manage symptoms.
A procedure to repair or replace the mitral valve may be required to improve quality of life when:
- Symptoms escalate
- Heart function declines to left-sided heart failure
- The heart is enlarged
To help manage symptoms of mitral valve regurgitation, your doctor may prescribe several medicines.
Patients at UK Gill Heart & Vascular Institute may be good candidates for MitraClip, an implant smaller than a dime that restores heart function and eases the strain on the heart. During a minimally invasive procedure, the MitraClip implant is guided via catheter from a needle puncture in your leg to the mitral valve. There, it is deployed to hold part of the damaged valve together, helping it close more completely and improving the mitral valve regurgitation. The procedure takes one to three hours, and patients return home from the hospital in one to three days.
MitraClip offers patients an alternative to open-heart surgery, but not everyone is a good candidate. The multidisciplinary team at UK HealthCare is composed of interventional cardiologists, advanced cardiac imagers and cardiothoracic surgeons who will evaluate each patient together to determine what treatment option is best.
