Aortic valve regurgitation
Definition:
Aortic valve regurgitation — or aortic regurgitation — is a condition that occurs when your heart's aortic valve doesn't close tightly. Aortic valve regurgitation allows some of the blood that was just pumped out of your heart's main pumping chamber (left ventricle) to leak back into it.
The leakage of blood may prevent your heart from efficiently pumping blood out to the rest of your body. As a result, you may feel fatigued and short of breath.
Aortic valve regurgitation can develop suddenly or over decades. Aortic valve regurgitation has a variety of causes, ranging from congenital heart defects to complications of infectious illnesses. Once aortic valve regurgitation becomes severe, surgery is often required to repair or replace the aortic valve.
Symptoms:
Most often, aortic valve regurgitation develops gradually, and your heart compensates for the problem. You may have no signs or symptoms for many years, and you may even be unaware that you have this condition.
However, as aortic valve regurgitation gets worse, signs and symptoms usually appear and may include:
Take the signs and symptoms of aortic valve regurgitation seriously and call or see a doctor right away if they develop. Sometimes the first indications of aortic valve regurgitation are those of its major complication, congestive heart failure. Signs and symptoms of congestive heart failure — a serious condition — include fatigue, shortness of breath, and swollen ankles and feet.
Causes:
Aortic valve regurgitation disrupts the way blood normally flows through your heart and its valves.
Your heart, the center of your circulatory system, consists of four chambers. The two upper chambers, the atria, receive blood. The two lower chambers, the ventricles, pump blood to your lungs and to the rest of your body. Blood flows through your heart's chambers, aided by four heart valves.
The aortic valve consists of three tightly fitting, triangular flaps of tissues called leaflets. These leaflets connect to the aorta through a ring called the annulus.
Heart valves open like a one-way gate. The leaflets of the aortic valve are forced open as the left ventricle contracts and blood flows into the aorta. When the blood has gone through the valve and the left ventricle has relaxed, the leaflets swing closed to prevent the blood that has just passed into the aorta from flowing back into the left ventricle.
A defective heart valve is one that fails to either open or close fully. When a valve doesn't close tightly, blood can leak backward. This backward flow through a valve is called regurgitation.
Numerous causes
Any condition that damages a valve can cause regurgitation. Causes of aortic valve regurgitation may be:
Complications:
Aortic valve regurgitation — or any heart valve problem — puts you at risk of endocarditis. Endocarditis is an infection of the heart's inner lining — the endocardium. This membrane lines the four chambers and four valves of your heart. Typically, this infection involves one of the heart valves, especially if it's already damaged. If the aortic valve is leaky, it's more prone to infection than is a healthy valve. You can develop endocarditis when bacteria from another part of your body spread through your bloodstream and lodge in your heart.
When it's mild, aortic valve regurgitation may never cause a serious threat to your health. But when it's severe, aortic valve regurgitation may lead to heart failure. Heart failure is a serious condition in which your heart is unable to pump enough blood to meet your body's needs.
Treatments and drugs:
Treatment of aortic valve regurgitation depends on how severe your regurgitation is, your signs and symptoms, and whether the regurgitation is affecting your heart function. If you have aortic valve regurgitation, your doctor will evaluate your heart with regular echocardiograms to determine whether damage to your heart is getting worse.
Observation
Some people, especially those with mild regurgitation, don't need treatment. However, even if you don't have signs and symptoms of aortic valve regurgitation, schedule regular evaluations with your doctor. Observation isn't the same as ignoring the condition. Actively observing the stability or the progression of the condition is important so that you can receive the right treatment at the right time.
Medications
Medication can't eliminate aortic valve regurgitation. However, your doctor may prescribe certain medications to reduce the severity of aortic valve regurgitation, control blood pressure, and try to prevent or treat fluid buildup.
Surgery
Once signs and symptoms of aortic valve regurgitation develop, you'll usually need surgery. However, if aortic valve regurgitation is weakening your heart, you may need surgery even if you feel well. While the heart is generally good at counteracting problems caused by a leaky aortic valve, the problem is that if the valve isn't fixed or replaced in time, the strength of your heart may decline so much that it's permanently weakened. You can avoid that by having surgery at the appropriate time.
The overall function of your heart and the amount of regurgitation help to determine when surgery is necessary. Surgical procedures include:
Definition:
Aortic valve regurgitation — or aortic regurgitation — is a condition that occurs when your heart's aortic valve doesn't close tightly. Aortic valve regurgitation allows some of the blood that was just pumped out of your heart's main pumping chamber (left ventricle) to leak back into it.
The leakage of blood may prevent your heart from efficiently pumping blood out to the rest of your body. As a result, you may feel fatigued and short of breath.
Aortic valve regurgitation can develop suddenly or over decades. Aortic valve regurgitation has a variety of causes, ranging from congenital heart defects to complications of infectious illnesses. Once aortic valve regurgitation becomes severe, surgery is often required to repair or replace the aortic valve.
Symptoms:
Most often, aortic valve regurgitation develops gradually, and your heart compensates for the problem. You may have no signs or symptoms for many years, and you may even be unaware that you have this condition.
However, as aortic valve regurgitation gets worse, signs and symptoms usually appear and may include:
- Fatigue and weakness, especially when you increase your activity level
- Shortness of breath with exertion or when you lie flat
- Chest pain (angina), discomfort or tightness, often increasing during exercise
- Fainting
- Irregular pulse (arrhythmia)
- Heart murmur
- Heart palpitations — sensations of a rapid, fluttering heartbeat
- Swollen ankles and feet (edema)
Take the signs and symptoms of aortic valve regurgitation seriously and call or see a doctor right away if they develop. Sometimes the first indications of aortic valve regurgitation are those of its major complication, congestive heart failure. Signs and symptoms of congestive heart failure — a serious condition — include fatigue, shortness of breath, and swollen ankles and feet.
Causes:
Aortic valve regurgitation disrupts the way blood normally flows through your heart and its valves.
Your heart, the center of your circulatory system, consists of four chambers. The two upper chambers, the atria, receive blood. The two lower chambers, the ventricles, pump blood to your lungs and to the rest of your body. Blood flows through your heart's chambers, aided by four heart valves.
The aortic valve consists of three tightly fitting, triangular flaps of tissues called leaflets. These leaflets connect to the aorta through a ring called the annulus.
Heart valves open like a one-way gate. The leaflets of the aortic valve are forced open as the left ventricle contracts and blood flows into the aorta. When the blood has gone through the valve and the left ventricle has relaxed, the leaflets swing closed to prevent the blood that has just passed into the aorta from flowing back into the left ventricle.
A defective heart valve is one that fails to either open or close fully. When a valve doesn't close tightly, blood can leak backward. This backward flow through a valve is called regurgitation.
Numerous causes
Any condition that damages a valve can cause regurgitation. Causes of aortic valve regurgitation may be:
- A congenital heart defect. You may have been born
with an aortic valve that has one leaflet (unicuspid valve) or two
leaflets (bicuspid valve) rather than the normal three leaflets. This
puts you at risk of developing aortic valve regurgitation at some time
in your life.
- Deterioration of the valve with age. The aortic
valve opens and shuts tens of thousands of times a day, every day of
your life. Aortic valve regurgitation may result from age-related wear
and tear on the valve, especially if you have high blood pressure.
- Endocarditis. The aortic valve may be damaged by endocarditis — an infection inside your heart that involves heart valves.
- Rheumatic fever. Rheumatic fever — a complication
of strep throat and once a common childhood illness in the United States
— can damage the aortic valve, leading to aortic valve regurgitation
later in life. Rheumatic fever may damage more than one heart valve, and
in more than one way. A damaged heart valve may not open fully or close
completely — or both. Rheumatic fever is still prevalent in developing
countries, and many older adults in the United States were exposed to
rheumatic fever as children.
- Disease. Other, rarer conditions that can damage
the aortic valve and lead to regurgitation include Marfan syndrome (a
disease of connective tissue), ankylosing spondylitis (a spine disorder)
and syphilis (a sexually transmitted infection).
- Trauma. Damage to the aorta near the site of the aortic valve, such as damage from injury to your chest or from a tear in the aorta, also can cause backward flow of blood through the valve.
Complications:
Aortic valve regurgitation — or any heart valve problem — puts you at risk of endocarditis. Endocarditis is an infection of the heart's inner lining — the endocardium. This membrane lines the four chambers and four valves of your heart. Typically, this infection involves one of the heart valves, especially if it's already damaged. If the aortic valve is leaky, it's more prone to infection than is a healthy valve. You can develop endocarditis when bacteria from another part of your body spread through your bloodstream and lodge in your heart.
When it's mild, aortic valve regurgitation may never cause a serious threat to your health. But when it's severe, aortic valve regurgitation may lead to heart failure. Heart failure is a serious condition in which your heart is unable to pump enough blood to meet your body's needs.
Treatments and drugs:
Treatment of aortic valve regurgitation depends on how severe your regurgitation is, your signs and symptoms, and whether the regurgitation is affecting your heart function. If you have aortic valve regurgitation, your doctor will evaluate your heart with regular echocardiograms to determine whether damage to your heart is getting worse.
Observation
Some people, especially those with mild regurgitation, don't need treatment. However, even if you don't have signs and symptoms of aortic valve regurgitation, schedule regular evaluations with your doctor. Observation isn't the same as ignoring the condition. Actively observing the stability or the progression of the condition is important so that you can receive the right treatment at the right time.
Medications
Medication can't eliminate aortic valve regurgitation. However, your doctor may prescribe certain medications to reduce the severity of aortic valve regurgitation, control blood pressure, and try to prevent or treat fluid buildup.
Surgery
Once signs and symptoms of aortic valve regurgitation develop, you'll usually need surgery. However, if aortic valve regurgitation is weakening your heart, you may need surgery even if you feel well. While the heart is generally good at counteracting problems caused by a leaky aortic valve, the problem is that if the valve isn't fixed or replaced in time, the strength of your heart may decline so much that it's permanently weakened. You can avoid that by having surgery at the appropriate time.
The overall function of your heart and the amount of regurgitation help to determine when surgery is necessary. Surgical procedures include:
- Valve repair. Aortic valve repair is surgery to preserve the valve and to improve its function. Occasionally, surgeons can modify the original valve (valvuloplasty) to eliminate backward blood flow. You don't need long-term medications to prevent blood clots (anticoagulation therapy) after a valvuloplasty.
-
Valve replacement. In many cases, the aortic valve has
to be replaced to correct aortic valve regurgitation. Your surgeon
removes your aortic valve and replaces it with a mechanical valve or a
tissue valve. Mechanical valves, made from metal, are durable, but they
carry the risk of blood clots forming on or near the valve. If you
receive a mechanical aortic valve, you'll need to take an anticoagulant
medication, such as warfarin (Coumadin), for life to prevent blood
clots. Tissue valves — which may come from a pig, cow or human cadaver
donor — often need to be replaced. Another type of tissue valve
replacement that uses your own pulmonary valve (autograft) is sometimes
possible.
Traditionally, aortic valve replacement has been performed with open-heart surgery. A less invasive approach — transcatheter aortic valve implantation — delivers the new valve through a catheter via the femoral artery in your leg (transfemoral) or the left ventricular apex of your heart (transapical). For now, this procedure is usually limited to individuals who have a narrowed aortic valve (aortic stenosis) rather than aortic regurgitation and are considered at high-risk for surgical complications. In the future, however, transcatheter aortic valve implantation may be an option for treatment of aortic regurgitation.
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