Heart valve disease

You have four heart valves: the tricuspid, pulmonary, mitral and aortic. Heart valve disease can affect any of them, though it is most common in the aortic and mitral valves.

What you should know about heart valve disease

• Some people with heart valve disease never experience problems or symptoms. Those with worsening symptoms will need treatment to reduce their risk of heart failure and stroke.
• The two most common heart valve conditions are aortic stenosis (aortic valve doesn’t fully open) and mitral regurgitation, or leaky valve (mitral valve doesn’t close tightly).
  
  

Why choose Geisinger for your heart valve disease care?

• Comprehensive heart valve treatments: We are able to treat heart valve disease in multiple ways: with medication, minimally invasive procedures or traditional heart valve surgery. For mitral valves, we repair rather than replace whenever possible, to provide you with the best results.
• Individualized care: We believe there is no one-size-fits-all way to treat heart valve disease. Each person is unique, and our heart team finds the best, lowest-risk approach that suits you best.
• Expansion of minimally invasive TAVR: We already offered transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) to people with aortic stenosis and a medium to high risk for surgery. Thanks to a clinical trial, we can now also offer it to people who face a low risk for surgery.
• MitraClip availability: MitraClip is a new, minimally invasive treatment that provides certain patients a new option. It treats the most common form of mitral regurgitation (leaky valve). Geisinger now offers MitraClip.