New Device For Mitral Valve Disease

After realizing that I am very interested in the cardiovascular system (thanks Dr. Wasser for the thought provoking what's your favorite system question on the last test), I decided to blog on something we actually studied at the beginning of the semester. So here it goes.

In studying the cardiovascular system, we found out that the heart valves are very important in regulating blood flow into and out of the heart as well as within the heart. Therefore, a leaky mitral valve is something to be concerned about. The general practice for repairing mitral valve leaks is open heart surgery. This procedure is very invasive, causes great pain, and has a long recovery time. Therefore, alternatives such as the MitraClip are being studied. Doctors from the University of Virginia Health System are hoping that this device and its minimally invasive implantation will be able to make the trauma of open heart surgery for this problem obsolete.
The MitraClip is housed inside a catheter that is inserted into a leg vein. The catheter is then maneuvered up to the heart and to the leaky mitral valve. Using the catheter, the surgeon then implants the device which holds the leak shut. The surgery is done on an outpatient basis proving its minimally invasive nature. So far, no patients that have undergone the new treatment have had any major life-threatening complications.

Thomas Dietzman