{"id":1826,"date":"2022-01-11T20:12:44","date_gmt":"2022-01-11T20:12:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/?page_id=1826"},"modified":"2023-09-27T13:17:10","modified_gmt":"2023-09-27T13:17:10","slug":"asymptomatic-degenerative-mitral-regurgitation","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/asymptomatic-degenerative-mitral-regurgitation\/","title":{"rendered":"Cardiologist Q&#038;A: Risks &#038; Treatment of Asymptomatic Degenerative Mitral Regurgitation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>One of the reasons that heart valve disease is referred to as an &#8220;insidious disease&#8221; is the fact that patients with severe forms of valvular disorders can be completely asymptomatic. As a result, patients without symptoms may unknowingly experience cardiac damage that could lead to heart failure and life-threatening situations.<\/p>\n<p>For this reason, we interviewed <a href=\"https:\/\/www.feinberg.northwestern.edu\/faculty-profiles\/az\/profile.html?xid=30731\">Dr. James Thomas<\/a>, Professor of Medicine (Cardiology) at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/hospital\/northwestern-memorial-valve-program\">Northwestern Medicine<\/a> in Chicago, Illinois, to learn about one type of asymptomatic heart valve disease known as degenerative mitral regurgitation. As you may know, Dr. Thomas is a leading heart valve expert, known his cutting-edge research specific to echocardiography specific to the management and treatment of cardiac valve disorders.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/yNG3GosopiQ\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>Key Learnings About Asymptomatic Degenerative Mitral Regurgitation<\/h2>\n<p>The key learnings that Dr. Thomas shared during this interview include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Dr. Thomas is a heart valve expert who has spent most of his 25+ year career helping patients with valvular disorders including aortic stenosis and mitral regurgitation.\u00a0 Given his interests in physics, Dr. Thomas was attracted to the unique ability to use echocardiography for the enhanced management and treatment heart valve disorders.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/surgeonvideoimages\/7435950552.jpeg\" alt=\"Dr. James Thomas (Professor of Cardiology, Northwestern Medicine)\" width=\"225\" height=\"225\" \/>Dr. James Thomas<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/mitral-valve-regurgitation-symptoms-leaking.php\">Mitral regurgitation<\/a>, a leaky valve, can block the flow of blood through the heart. There are two main categories of mitral regurgitation that are degenerative (organic) mitral regurgitation, caused by heart valve leaflet disfunction, and functional mitral regurgitation, caused by structural issues that support the valve (e.g. the mitral valve annulus).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-1831 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/..\/Images\/mitral-regurgitation-types-dr-thomas.jpg\" alt=\"Types of Mitral Regurgitation\" width=\"650\" height=\"364\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Common symptoms of mitral regurgitation include fatigue, shortness of breath, an enlarged heart, and atrial fibrillation.<\/li>\n<li>Treatment for mitral regurgitation may include medications.\u00a0 However, as mitral regurgitation is a mechanical issue within the cardiac structure, more severe forms of therapy may require a surgical mitral valve repair\/replacement or transcatheter mitral valve repair\/replacement.<\/li>\n<li>Patients with mitral regurgitation can be completely asymptomatic. As Dr. Thomas stated, &#8220;I&#8217;ve seen some patients who are really great athletes. They are running marathons. The patients are in such good shape that you don\u2019t recognize any symptoms. But, they may have very serious valvular regurgitation that needs to be addressed.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>Important indicators that are tracked by Dr. Thomas for patients with asymptomatic degenerative mitral regurgitation include (i) changes in the performance of the heart and the mitral valve detected through echocardiography over time, (ii) pumping function of the left ventricle, and (iii) size of left atrium.<\/li>\n<li>Dr. Thomas and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/surgeons\/dr-Patrick-McCarthy-Chicago-Illinois.php\">Dr. Patrick McCarthy (Chief of Cardiac Surgery at Northwestern Medicine)<\/a>\u00a0recently published research in the <a href=\"https:\/\/pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/33419544\/\"><em>Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery<\/em><\/a> that analyzed patient data over the past 15 years which examined the impact of mitral valve repair surgery on asymptomatic or minimally-symptomatic patients. Those patients who had surgery early had better outcomes than those patients who waited to develop true symptoms. Here is a video of Dr. McCarthy discussing this important, new research paper:<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/laKsn2KErD8\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>For his best piece of advice, Dr. Thomas states, &#8220;I think the most important thing is for patients to make sure they get to a mitral valve center of excellence. This is a relatively rare disease. You want to get yourself to a place that sees a lot of it. There are number of good centers around the country that are very experienced with this disease.&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>Many Thanks to Dr. Thomas &amp; Northwestern Medicine!<\/h2>\n<p>On behalf of our entire patient community, many thanks to Dr. Thomas for sharing his clinical experience and research with our community!\u00a0 Also, many thanks to the Northwestern Medicine team for taking such great care of heart valve patients.<\/p>\n<p>Related links:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/clinical-trials\/repair-mr\">Clinical Trial Innovation: REPAIR MR for Mitral Regurgitation Patients Enrolling Now<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/33419544\/\">Research Alert: Asymptomatic Degenerative Mitral Regurgitation Repair<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Keep on tickin!<br \/>\nAdam<\/p>\n<p>P.S. For the hearing impaired members of our patient community, I have provided a written transcript of this video below.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"cms.php","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"class_list":["post-1826","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry","category-mitral-regurgitation"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1826","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1826"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1826\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3798,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1826\/revisions\/3798"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}