Heart valves and valve disease

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goodtoknow says: Heart valve disease can affect any of your four heart valves. The most common heart valve problems are valve stenosis, where the opening of a valve is narrowed, or valve regurgitation, where a leaky valve doesn't close properly. With both, the blood-flow is altered, putting a strain on your heart. Symptoms include shortness of breath, dizziness, chest pain and tiredness. Rheumatic heart disease, an infection of the heart valve and calcium deposits are the most common causes. If symptoms are mild you won't need treatment, but medication or surgery to stretch or replace the valve may be needed.

For a full medical explanation of the causes, symptoms and treatment of heart valves and valve disease from patient.co.uk, read on

This leaflet gives an overview of heart valve disease. There are four separate leaflets that give details of the four common types of valve problem - mitral stenosis, mitral regurgitation, aortic stenosis, and aortic regurgitation.

Understanding the heart

The heart has four chambers - two atria and two ventricles. The walls of these chambers are mainly made of special heart muscle.

During each heartbeat both of the atria contract first to pump blood into the ventricles. Then both ventricles contract to pump blood out of the heart into the arteries. There are one-way valves between the atria and ventricles, and also between the ventricles and the large arteries that take blood from the heart. These are:

The mitral valve - between the left atrium and the left ventricle.
The tricuspid valve - between the right atrium and the right ventricle.
The pulmonary valve - between the right ventricle and the pulmonary artery (the main artery that takes blood from the heart to the lungs to collect oxygen).
The aortic valve - between the left ventricle and the aorta (the main artery that takes oxygen-rich blood from the heart to the body).

The valves make sure that when the atria or ventricles contract, the blood flows the correct way through the heart and into the arteries. ?See separate leaflet called 'How the Heart Works' for more details on the function of the heart and how the heart beats.