Valve Diseases

Hi,

I am Dr. Rahul Gupta, Cardiologist. Today I will talk about valve disease. First, we need to understand what is a valve in the heart. Now the heart is a 4 chamber structure which has got 4 valves. It regulates the blood from one direction to the other. Now blood has to go through the pipes. Now the function of the valves is to open and close properly. There can be 2 kinds of issues like the valve is not opening properly but when it becomes due to the deposits of calcium or some congenital anomaly, so in such cases it may not open and close properly. When it will not close, it will cause leakage and when it will not open, it will cause the obstruction to the blood flow.

Now today I will explain about the aortic valve. When it becomes very narrow, the flow to the different organs will cause the problem. The person can have symptoms of breathlessness, tiredness, fatigue, pain in the chest. There can be fainting, dizziness, collapse because blood is not reaching properly. Till date, the treatment for this kind of problem was to open up the chest and do open heart surgery and replace the old valves with the new valves wither a metallic o tissue valve. Now as the patient desires to get the minimally invasive procedure, so the procedure invented that it can be done without opening the chest. This procedure is known as TAVI/TAVR. This procedure is done through the leg artery. We take the valve into the heart This procedure is done when the patient is conscious. We do not make any kind of any cut. We do the procedure under x-ray guidance.

Now, this procedure is getting done in about 45 minutes. And then the patient is shifted into the ICU for observation for about 24-48 hours, And then the third day, the patient can be discharged. I hope you have understood the procedure through the video. So, this procedure was invented by the great man at the age of 75. When he proposed the idea, people were like that this is an impossible task. But because of his persistent work, we have a wonderful technology which benefitted humanity. I think I have made you cleared enough about this procedure. Similarly, other valves can also be replaced without making any incision. Thank you all for listening to this video and I hope it will be useful for all of you Always remember, all these procedures are done in a heart team approach. We all cardiologist and surgeons sit together and we decide, which kind of treatment would be the best for the patient.

Thank You.