How are aortic stenosis and regurgitation treated?
The severity of aortic insufficiency can sometimes be reduced with medications, but aortic stenosis has no effective medical therapy. For both conditions, the most definitive treatment involves surgical replacement of the valve with a prosthetic valve. Timely surgery is advised since significant delay can lead to irreversible congestive heart failure. In many cases, the mitral valve can be repaired by reconstructing the native valve tissues to restore normal valvular structure and function. In fact, the mitral valve is the most commonly repaired heart valve. Experimental and clinical research has shown that repair of the mitral valve is preferable to its replacement largely because native mitral valve is an intimately associated with the structure of the left ventricle. In cases when repair of the mitral valve cannot be performed successfully, Mitral valve replacement is another option. Mitral valve replacement involves removing much of the native mitral valve tissues and replacing it
