Adam’s Heart Valve Surgery Blog

Question Topic: PISA Mitral Regurgitation

Let’s all remember that I am heart valve surgery patient. I am not a cardiologist or a cardiac surgeon. That said, every once and a while I get emails about topics that are very technical, very scientific and very tough for me to answer.

Guess what? That’s great!!!! I love it. I like learning about all the different elements of heart surgery.

One of the more technical questions that arrived in my inbox was about PISA mitral regurgitation. “What the heck is that?” you may be wondering. Well, let me explain as best I can.

There are many diagnostic processes to determine the severity of mitral valve regurgitation. A doctor can review the patient’s symptoms or the doctor can utilize a series of tests to diagnose mitral regurgitation. Electrocardiograms, x-rays, and echocardiograms are popular tests used to determine the problems of bloodflow through the heart valves.

FYI, I had two echocardiograms to confirm my need for aortic valve replacement. (Pssst! Please. Please. Don’t forget to get a second opinion - click here to find out why!!!)

Now for the scientific stuff about PISA mitral regurgitation:

The degree of severity of mitral regurgitation can be quantified by the percentage of the left ventricular stroke volume that regurgitates into the left atrium (also known as the regurgitant fraction).

Another way to quantify the degree of mitral regurgitation is to determine the area of the regurgitant flow at the level of the mitral valve.

This is known as the regurgitant orifice area, and correlates with the size of the defect in the mitral valve. One particular echocardiographic technique used to measure the orifice area is measurement of the proximal isovelocity surface area (PISA). The flaw of using PISA to determine the mitral valve regurgitant orifice area is that it measures the flow at one moment in time in the cardiac cycle, which may not reflect the average performance of the regurgitant jet.

Pretty simple stuff, right?

If the regurgitation is severe, cardiac surgery may be required. For example, my valve suffered from severe stenosis and severe regurgitation. Needless to say, that was not good.

To learn more about heart valve repairs and heart valve replacements, feel free to visit my Valve Surgery Learning Center.

I hope this helps!

Keep on tickin!

About The Author: Adam Pick is a double, heart valve surgery patient and author of The Patient’s Guide To Heart Valve Surgery, a unique book which integrates the clinical facts of heart valve surgery with the personal experiences of 78 former valve surgery patients. To learn more about Adam and his heart valve surgery book, click here.

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 11th, 2007 at 9:52 am and is filed under Heart Valve Surgery, Email Bag, Pictures, Studies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. Print This Post | EMail This Post.