Structural Heart

Valvular heart disease

Aortic stenosis, mitral regurgitation, and valve management

Also called VHD, aortic stenosis, mitral regurgitation

Sources: 12 new papers · 5 key papers · updated Oct 20, 2026

Overview

Unverified · drafted by AI from the sources cited below

Definition

Heart Valve Diseases are pathological conditions that involve any of the various heart valves and their associated structures, such as papillary muscles and chordae tendineae.1

Diagnosis and risk stratification

Echocardiography is the key technique to diagnose valvular heart disease and assess its severity and prognosis.1 Deep learning analysis of electrocardiography (ECG) may also be useful; one deep learning algorithm detected any of aortic stenosis, aortic regurgitation, or mitral regurgitation with an area under the receiver-operating characteristic of 0.84, demonstrating 78% sensitivity and 73% specificity.2 Valvular heart disease remains underdiagnosed and is often identified late.3

Treatment

Transcatheter mitral valve replacement has emerged as a less invasive approach for mitral regurgitation, potentially overcoming some limitations of transcatheter repair therapies, and a growing number of systems allow for a fully percutaneous transfemoral approach.1 Minimally invasive surgical approaches are also being adopted; for example, a study of two-incision thoracoscopic double valve replacement showed that mean cardiopulmonary bypass time decreased across learning phases from 187.5±34.2 to 156.3±27.6 and 138.4±18.9 minutes.2 Additionally, a selective single-cusp replacement technique can tricuspidize a unicuspid aortic valve in an adolescent, preserving native leaflet tissue.3 Currently, there is no medication that can prevent disease progression.4

Open questions

Further research is needed to fill the gaps in clinical guidelines.1 Additionally, therapeutic management is currently hampered by a lack of mechanistic understanding of human valve development and pathobiology.2

FDA actions

FDA approvals, label changes, device decisions and recalls on Valvular heart disease from the last three months.

FDA announcementOct 1, 2026

FDA Approves First Heart Valve Designed to Grow with Children

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today approved the Autus Size-Adjustable Valve, a surgically implanted pulmonary heart valve for pediatric patients with congenital pulmonary valve disease.

FDA

FDA device approvalOct 1, 2026

FDA Device PMA: Heart-Valve, Polymeric

Applicant: Edwards Lifesciences, LLC. Cardiovascular

PMAHeart-Valve, Polymeric

FDA

How this page is built

A clinical question appears here only when its condition matches this topic, an outcome and a comparator were extracted from the studies, at least two studies and a patient count are on file, and the certainty is low or higher.

Supports benefit, no benefit shown, and mixed describe the direction of the measured effect. No benefit shown means the evidence does not support a benefit. It is not a finding of harm. Too little evidence means the question did not clear that bar.

Study count, RCT count, and patient count are separate. The patient total adds only studies that are linked into a study family and whose sample size is not flagged as implausible. A reversal is listed only when at least one randomized trial sits on each side of the change.

The overview is drafted from the guideline recommendations, trials, papers, and questions on this page, and every sentence has to cite one of them. It stays unverified until an NPI-verified clinician or a Synapse admin approves it. Approving records that person's name.

Valvular heart disease

Overview

Definition

Diagnosis and risk stratification

Treatment

Open questions

FDA actions

FDA Approves First Heart Valve Designed to Grow with Children

FDA Device PMA: Heart-Valve, Polymeric

New research on Valvular heart disease

Journal clubs discussing Valvular heart disease

Recent sessions

Journal Club takes on Valvular heart disease

Key papers

How this page is built

Journal Club takes on Valvular heart disease

Leading authors