Definition and Risk

Valvular heart disease is a common kind of heart diseases. It refers to refers to heart valve diseases due to series of reasons, including rheumatic fever, mucus degeneration, degenerative changes, congenital malformations, ischemic necrosis, infection and trauma. The lesion could be in the mitral valve, tricuspid valve, aortic valve or pulmonary valve. The valve leaflet, chordae tendineae and papillary muscles and/or the surrounding tissues could be involved.  Those anatomical or functional abnormalities could result in single or multiple valves stenosis and/or insufficiency, and causing cardiac hemodynamic changes, eventually leading to heart failure. The progression of valvular heart disease is usually very slow and the patients usually with no symptoms. However it is the major cause to heart failure and cardiac death. At the end stage of this disease, the patient could get palpitation, shortness of breath and dyspnea. Arrhythmia, left heart failure and right heart failure can be found in some patients. Sudden death also could happen.

Treatment

Though surgical valve replacement is still the main treatment method for valvular heart disease, new techniques such as percutaneous intervention have been introduced to clinical application. The aortic valve or pulmonary valve can be replaced by catheter technique, such as TAVR or PPVI. During surgical replacement, the knot-tying device could significantly reduce aortic crossclamp time. Compared with traditional knotting time, it can be shortened to 20%. Moreover, the risk of surgery and postoperative complications can be significantly reduced.