General Information

Heart valve replacement is a surgical procedure for replacing your heart valve. This is done when a surgeon cannot repair a heart valve. In this procedure, the valve is removed and replaced with an artificial valve also known as a prosthetic valve (St. Jude Medical, Inc., 2007; Heart Valve Replacement, 2007; Encyclopedia of Medicine, 2006). In this procedure the surgeon sews the prosthetic valve into the leftover tissue from the original valve. When this surgery is preformed the surgeons attach the patient to a by pass machine, which performs the job that your lungs and your heart does, while the surgeons can fix your damaged heart valve.

Ninety-five percent of all valve replacements are performed either on the mitral or the aortic valve (St. Jude Medical, Inc., 2007). The mitral valve is placed in the heart's left side, more specifically between the left atrium and the left ventricle (St. Jude Medical, Inc., 2007). The aortic valve is the valve that separates the left ventricle from the aorta. The aorta is the valve which carries blood to the body.

Did you know...
...Hold out your hand and make a fist. If you're a kid, your heart is about the same size as your fist, and if you're an adult, it's about the same size as two fists.