Treatments

Treatments for Tricuspid Valve Disease

The team of cardiologists and cardiac surgeons at the Center for Heart Valve Disease collaborate to carefully determine the character of tricuspid valve disease in patients with symptoms of right heart failure. Using two- and three-dimensional echocardiography and cardiac magnetic resonance imaging, our physicians can very accurately evaluate the extent and nature of your tricuspid valve disease. Once a clear diagnosis is made, the team determines whether medical or surgical management is the better option, given the particular factors of your situation.

In the case of severe tricuspid insufficiency/regurgitation, surgical valve repair is the treatment of choice in a surgical center that performs a high volume of tricuspid valve repair procedures.

In the past, surgery to correct tricuspid valve disease was rarely performed, but with improved technologies and skillful surgeons, tricuspid valve repair is becoming more commonplace. This repair may be recommended for primary tricuspid disease to treat valvular leakage (regurgitation), or as a combined procedure with other heart surgery such as coronary artery bypass surgery or heart valve surgery.

Several innovations of valve repair surgery have been introduced by the surgeons at the Bluhm Cardiovascular Institute. In particular, Patrick McCarthy, MD, Chief of Cardiac Surgery, designed the specialized tricuspid valve annuloplasty ring, the MC3 annuloplasty ring, which has become the preferred method to repair the tricuspid valve.

The anatomically correct three-dimensional (3D) ring flexibly conforms to the heart valve opening and does not cause strain on the sutures sewn around the ring to make the valve opening smaller. This allows the valve to open and close properly. Advantages to tricuspid valve repair using the ring technique:

• The repair is more durable.
• The patient is less likely to need a pacemaker than if the valve were replaced.