Heart Valve Disease

Doctors at St. Peter’s Health Partners excel in treating heart valve diseases. Our trusted experts work together to tailor care to your needs. When a procedure is necessary, many patients benefit from minimally invasive approaches that repair valves with small incisions that are gentler on the body.

Regardless of the treatment you need, our record of outstanding results has earned our program a national reputation and often exceed national care standards. We maintain high success rates even for complicated procedures, like valve repairs in people with abnormal heart structures. This commitment to excellence has earned our program recognition from U.S. News & World Report.

What is Heart Valve Disease?

Your heart is made up for four valves that work together to keep blood flowing through your body. Heart valve disease is when one or more of those valves isn't working properly.

The tricuspid valve is in the top left part of the heart and receives oxygen-rich blood from the lungs.
The mitral valve allows blood to pass from top to bottom on the left side of the heart.
The aortic valve directs oxygen-rich blood from the bottom left side of the heart out to the body.
The pulmonary valve sends oxygen-poor blood from the body back to the lungs so it can be released.

These valves have thin tissue flaps at the tip (leaflets) that snap open and shut with each heartbeat. Sometimes the valves may not open and close properly, or they may be too narrow or have a leak, keeping the blood from going where it is supposed to go. Diseases affecting these valves put you at risk for arrhythmias, heart failure, cardiac arrest, high blood pressure in the lungs, or infection.

Heart Valve Disease is a Type of Structural Heart Disease. It Leads to Issues Such As:

Regurgitation (leaky valve or insufficiency) occurs when valves don’t fully close, causing blood to flow back toward the heart.
Prolapse happens when leaflets (tissue flaps at the tip of the heart valves) bulge outward and don’t snap shut properly.
Stenosis occurs when leaflets become stiff and the valve narrows, limiting the amount of blood that passes through it.

Why Choose St. Peter’s Health Partners for Your Heart Valve Disease Care?

We are among the few places in the Capital Region delivering comprehensive heart valve disease care. Our services include tests that lead to an accurate diagnosis and treatments that are gentler on your body. Highly skilled structural heart disease experts, some with decades of experience, guide your care, giving you the best chances for outstanding results.

At St. Peter’s Health Partners, you receive services from a team that cares about you as an individual. We tailor therapies to your unique needs and answer all your questions. These extra steps are why more people choose to stay with our program for ongoing care. We even treat multiple generations of the same families.

Heart Valve Disease Symptoms

In early stages of heart valve disease, you might not notice symptoms. Other times, they can come on suddenly or worsen without warning. Heart valve disease can be treated but will not go away on its own.

Some symptoms to watch for include:

Chest pain
Lightheadedness or fainting
Racing heartbeat (palpitations)
Shortness of breath
Swelling in your abdomen or lower legs
Unusual tiredness
Weakness

If you are experiencing symptoms, St. Peter’s Health Partners is here for you with walk-in cardiovascular clinics in some locations. You can receive an evaluation and testing with no appointment so you can start feeling better, sooner.

Heart Valve Disease Diagnosis

We perform advanced cardiac imaging and other tests to detect heart valve issues and determine a diagnosis. Your evaluation may include:

Cardiac Catheterization - This procedure enables doctors to perform imaging and other tests from inside the heart. We use small incisions and tiny tubes (catheters) to perform this test.
CT Scan - This imaging test uses special technology to fuse X-rays from different angles to create detailed views of valve tissue.
Echocardiogram - High-frequency sound waves produce images of the heart’s valves, chambers and blood flow.
Exercise Stress Test - For this test, you walk on a treadmill at a comfortable pace. It enables us to observe symptoms that occur when the heart is working harder than usual.

Heart Valve Disease Treatment

Heart valve disease treatment often includes procedures to repair or replace malfunctioning valves. We hold ourselves to the highest care standards, which has earned our program prestigious national recognition.

We offer a full range of heart valve repair and replacement procedures. The most common ones we perform include:

Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement (TAVR) for aortic stenosis: We use catheter-based techniques to implant an aortic valve replacement.
MitraClip® for mitral valve regurgitation: This tiny clip attaches to the tips of a leaky mitral valve to form a tight seal when it closes.