Why Its Done

Reasons for having a heart valve replacement

A heart valve replacement may be recommended if you have severe heart valve disease and it's not possible to repair your heart valve.

It can treat different types of heart valve disease including:

• aortic stenosis or mitral stenosis, where your aortic or mitral valve is too narrow and does not open fully
• aortic regurgitation or mitral regurgitation, where your aortic or mitral valve does not close fully and is leaky
• a bicuspid aortic valve, a condition some people are born with where the aortic valve has only 2 flaps instead of 3

Heart valve replacement helps with symptoms of heart valve disease such as chest pain, feeling dizzy, shortness of breath, heart palpitations and feeling tired.

It's also sometimes recommended to treat severe heart valve disease even if you do not have symptoms. It helps to prevent your condition getting worse and leading to heart failure, where your heart cannot pump blood as well as it should.

A heart valve replacement is usually very successful, but it's a major operation that has risks. It will only be recommended if the benefits outweigh the risks for you.

Alternatives to a heart valve replacement

A heart valve replacement is not always needed to treat heart valve disease.

Mild heart valve disease with no symptoms may not need any treatment.

Symptoms of mild or moderate heart valve disease can usually be treated with medicines.

If you have severe heart valve disease, there are other surgical treatments that may sometimes be recommended instead of heart valve replacement.

These are not suitable for everyone, but might include:

• surgery to repair your heart valve, if it's not seriously damaged - this is done by making a large cut in your chest or smaller cuts between your ribs
• using a clip to repair a leaky heart valve - the clip is inserted by passing a thin tube (catheter) through a blood vessel in your upper leg
• widening a narrowed heart valve using a small balloon that's passed into your heart through a catheter in your upper leg (balloon valvuloplasty)

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