Following up on a recently blog about children with heart murmurs ^[1], I received an email from Sharon that reads, “Adam – Thanks for your blog about structural versus functional heart murmurs ^[2]. As a parent, I’m curious to know if you can further help me understand the correlation of heart murmurs to heart valve problems? I’m trying to understand whether my daughter’s murmur (mitral valve prolapse) will eventually lead to some form of valve repair or replacement. Any thoughts? Best, Sharon”

This is an interesting question that I can directly relate too. If you didn’t know, I was incorrectly diagnosed (when I was 5 years old) with a heart murmur due to mitral valve prolapse ^[3]. I lived the next 28 years with no problems. Then, the problems started and eight weeks later I had aortic and pulmonary valve replacements at USC Medical Center.

Obviously, I am evidence of the correlation of heart murmurs and heart valve problems – specifically a murmur caused by a bicuspid aortic valve. However, when you review the statistics of heart murmurs that lead to heart valve surgery, the correlation is relatively small.

First, consider that there are approximately 100,000 heart valve surgeries in the United States each year. Then, consider that 2% of the US population, or 4 million people, have some form of murmur due to mitral valve prolapse (not including the other forms of valve disorders). If you do the math, you quickly realize that the correlation of heart murmurs that trigger severe heart valve problems and, ultimately, heart valve surgery is tiny.

That said, I strongly encourage all patients diagnosed with a heart murmur to continually monitor and seek ongoing care from a cardiologist. The last thing you want is to let a treatable heart murmur transition into severe valve disease (dilated / enlarged heart ^[4]) and heart failure.

I hope this helps explain a little more about the correlation between heart murmurs and actual heart valve problems.

Keep on tickin!