Chennai: A 19-year-old woman got a new lease of life after the doctors at Madras Medical Mission repaired her heart valve-mitral valve instead of replacing it with a metal valve.
According to a press release, the woman was suffering from severe heart failure. Her disease called mitral regurgitation, mitral insufficiency or mitral incompetence is a condition in which her heart’s mitral valve doesn’t close tightly, allowing blood to flow backward in her heart, commonly called valve leak.
The woman hailing from a semi-nomadic community got married six months back and was diagnosed with mitral valve regurgitation with severe symptoms. Her marriage was at a brink of collapse as her husband’s family realised the treatment for this condition is replacing her valve with a metal valve. ‘When they came to me, I counseled the husband’s family and made them aware of the fact that her mitral valve can be repaired and she can have a safe and healthy pregnancy a few months after her surgery,’ said MMM senior consultant-cardiac surgery, Dr Anbarasu Mohanraj.
She underwent a mitral valve repair and is happily back with her family.
MMM offers a valve repair programme, where in more than 90 per cent of mitral valve regurgitations can be repaired with a good result, the release said.