{"id":2471,"date":"2022-07-26T18:35:38","date_gmt":"2022-07-26T18:35:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/?page_id=2471"},"modified":"2025-06-10T00:07:42","modified_gmt":"2025-06-10T00:07:42","slug":"bicuspid-aortic-valve-medications-drugs","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/bicuspid-aortic-valve-medications-drugs\/","title":{"rendered":"Bicuspid Aortic Valve Disease &#038; Medications: Top 7 Facts with Dr. Luis Castro"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Patients diagnosed with bicuspid aortic valve disease are often confused about the potential use of medication and\/or cardiac surgery to treat this unique form of heart disease. For example, Tina just emailed me, &#8220;Hi Adam &#8211; Is there any medicine for the treatment of a leaking bicuspid aortic valve?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>To answer Tina&#8217;s question, I just met with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/surgeons\/dr-Luis-Castro-Larkspur-California.php\">Dr. Luis Castro<\/a>, a leading heart valve surgeon at MarinHealth Heart and Vascular Institute in Marin County, California. During his extraordinary career, Dr. Castro has performed over 8,000 cardiac procedures and more than 5,000 heart valve repair and replacement operations. At HeartValveSurgery.com, Dr. Castro has successfully treated over <a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/surgeons\/dr-Luis-Castro-Larkspur-California.php\">200 patients<\/a> in our community including Shelly Gould and James Hoffman.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/zJecUEWovK4\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>Key Insights About Medicine &amp; Bicuspid Aortic Valves<\/h2>\n<p>Here are important insights from Dr. Castro about medications and bicuspid aortic valves:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/bicuspid-aortic-valve-symptoms.php\">Bicuspid aortic valve disease<\/a> is the most common congenital abnormality impacting 1% to 2% of the population.<\/li>\n<li>According to Dr. Castro, the majority of patients with bicuspid aortic valves will not need heart surgery during their lifetimes. Operations are typically required for patients who have advanced, or severe, forms of this valvular defect.\u00a0 Aortic valve disease may be categorized as trace, mild, moderate and severe.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/surgeons\/dr-Luis-Castro-Larkspur-California.php\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/profileImages\/326_129_161.jpg\" alt=\"Dr. Luis Castro, Heart Surgeon\" width=\"129\" height=\"161\" \/>Dr. Luis Castro<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>There are two types of disease associated with bicuspid aortic valves including (i) <a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/aortic-stenosis-valve-heart-narrowing.php\">aortic stenosis<\/a> which is a narrow valve and (ii) <a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/2019\/01\/17\/aortic-regurgitation\/\">aortic regurgitation<\/a> which is a leaking valve. Both stenosis and regurgitation force the heart to work &#8220;overtime&#8221; to pump blood through the heart.\u00a0 This ongoing strain on the heart can lead to an enlarged heart (cardiomyopathy), heart failure and death.<\/li>\n<li>For patients with mild forms of bicuspid aortic valves, medications can be used to help manage the aortic regurgitation. &#8220;Medication can be used, and very successfully, with mild cases of regurgitation,&#8221; states Dr. Castro.\u00a0 &#8220;What we try to do with medication is to lower blood pressure on the end where blood is trying to be expelled in, so that more blood ends up forward and less blood ends up coming back and returning to the heart. We can also \u2013 like a leaky faucet, if you will. If you&#8217;ve got a leaky valve and a leaky faucet, you turn down the water supply so that it leaks less. We can use diuretics which are medications that enhances urination and decrease the total volume of blood within the heart chamber so your valve is going to leak less.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>If the severity of the aortic regurgitation increases, patients may need aortic valve repair and\/or aortic valve replacement surgery.<\/li>\n<li>Aortic valve surgery is very effective and safe, according to Dr. Castro. &#8220;If you are ever faced with your aortic valve requiring an operation because it&#8217;s just too leaky, the good news is that we live in a day and age where we perform these operations very safely. There&#8217;s lots of choices. There&#8217;s tissue heart valves. There&#8217;s mechanical heart valves. The surgical choices that you have are extremely safe.&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-2479 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/..\/Images\/prosthetic-heart-valve-replacement-tissue-mechanical.jpg\" alt=\"Prosthetic Heart Valve Replacement\" width=\"700\" height=\"393\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>Many Thanks to Dr. Castro!<\/h2>\n<p>On behalf of our patient community, many thanks to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/surgeons\/dr-Luis-Castro-Larkspur-California.php\">Dr. Luis Castro<\/a> for sharing his clinical experiences and research specific to bicuspid aortic valve and medications. We also want to thank his entire team\u00a0for taking such great care of our patients with heart valve disease.<\/p>\n<p>Keep on tickin!<br \/>\nAdam<\/p>\n<p>P.S. For the deaf and hard of hearing members of our community, I have provided a written transcript of my interview with Dr. Castro 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":[9],"class_list":["post-2471","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry","category-bicuspid-aortic-valve"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2471","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=2471"}],"version-history":[{"count":24,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2471\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5893,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2471\/revisions\/5893"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}