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What Is The Most Commonly Operated On Heart Valve?

By Adam Pick on September 10, 2007

Hey everyone,

So, I just got stumped. I was asked a pretty unique question that I have never heard before. The question is, "What is the most commonly operated on heart valve?"

Four heart valves shown in medical drawing of heart

As you know, I'm not one to back down from a good, challenging question...

Therefore, I went to the Internet and started searching at Google.

Unfortunately, I did not find anything that statistically showed the number of surgeries by valve for any given period of time. That said, for this blog, I'm going to take an educated guess given my research and interviews with heart valve surgery patients and caregivers from around the world.

My mind tells me that the mitral valve and the aortic valve are the two, most popular valves that experience defect and surgery. If you were really going to press me on the topic, I would have to say the mitral valve is probably operated on more. I say this due to the fact that about 1 in 20 people have a mitral valve prolapse and, therefore, mitral valve regurgitation.

After that, I would guesstimate that the pulmonary valve is operated on most next and then the tricuspid valve.

If any of you have any ideas or statistics on this topic, I would love to know about them.

Keep on tickin!
Adam

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Written by Adam Pick
Patient & Website Founder

Written by Adam Pick - Patient & Website Founder

Adam Pick is a heart valve patient and author of The Patient's Guide To Heart Valve Surgery. In 2006, Adam founded HeartValveSurgery.com to educate and empower patients. This award-winning website has helped over 10 million people fight heart valve disease. Adam has been featured by the American Heart Association and Medical News Today.

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