People with mitral valve regurgitation, a leaky heart valve, who are considered too ill for valve repair or replacement now have a nonsurgical option.
MitraClip therapy allows doctors to reach the heart through a thin tube called a catheter inserted into a vein in your leg.
What is MitraClip?
The MitraClip, as the name suggests, is a mesh clip no taller than a dime that attaches to your mitral valve, allowing the valve to close more securely and prevent the backflow of blood into the atrium from the ventricle. In most cases, patients are released from the hospital within three days.
Learn More About Mitral Valve Repair
Mitral valve regurgitation is the most common heart-valve disorder, when blood leaks backward through the mitral valve and into the left atrium (the heart’s upper chamber) each time the left ventricle contracts. Blood, in effect, is moving in two directions because it’s also flowing from the ventricle through the aortic valve – the heart’s normal function that helps replenish the body with oxygen-rich blood. In this case, however, it’s not enough.
Watch this simulation of a mitraclip procedure: