<unk>  is a cardiac surgery procedure in which a patient’s mitral valve is replaced by a different valve.<unk>  is typically performed robotically or manually, when the valve becomes too tight (mitral valve stenosis) for blood to flow into the left ventricle, or too loose (mitral valve regurgitation) in which case blood can leak into the left atrium and back up into the lung (The Society 1). Some individuals have a combination of mitral valve stenosis and mitral valve regurgitation or simply one or the other.
A<unk> /repair is performed to treat severe cases of mitral valve prolapse, heart valve stenosis, or other valvular diseases (BCM Para 1). Since a<unk>  is an open heart surgical procedure, it requires placing the patient on cardiopulmonary bypass to stop blood flow through the heart when it is opened up (The Society 1).
A<unk>  is necessary when the valve doesn’t open or close completely. When the valve narrows or is stenotic the valve doesn’t let blood flow easily into the heart causing the blood to "back up" and pressure to build up in the lungs (The Society 2). This is dangerous because when the leaflets in the valve don’t meet correctly, blood may leak backwards into the lungs each time the heart pumps. If blood leaks backwards, the heart has to pump harder in order to push the same amount of blood forward. This is known as volume overload. The heart may compensate for this overload for many months or even years but eventually the heart begins to fail and patients show symptoms of shortness of breath or fatigue (The Society 2).
Mitral valve replacement
Mitral valve repair
Aortic valve repair
Aortic stenosis valvuloplasty
Tricuspid regurgitation therapy
Mitral regurgitation surgery
Aortic valve replacement
Mitral stenosis surgery