How to treat rheumatic heart disease, surgical treatment is effective

Rheumatic heart disease is rheumatic heart disease. There are no obvious symptoms in the early stage of the disease, but in the later stage, symptoms such as fatigue, cough, palpitations, shortness of breath, and lower limb edema will appear. If the condition is serious, surgical treatment can be performed to avoid some complications.

1. Indications for surgery

It should be pointed out that most patients with valvular disease and severe hemodynamics should receive surgical treatment even if they have no clinical symptoms, unless they have contraindications to surgery. With the advancement of myocardial protection technology and cardiac surgery technology, the treatment effect of rheumatic heart valvular disease has steadily improved, with the surgical success rate reaching 98% and a satisfactory long-term survival rate. It mainly includes valvuloplasty and valve replacement.

2. Valvuloplasty

It includes the use of artificial valve ring plasty alone or in combination, stripping of thickened fibrous tissue of the valve leaflets, resection of calcified foci of the valve leaflets and patch repair, as well as correction of thickened and fused chordae tendineae.

3. Valve replacement

With the development of cardiovascular surgery technology and the improvement of people's demand for quality of life, mitral valve replacement has gradually replaced closed mitral valve commissurotomy, percutaneous mitral valvuloplasty, and direct mitral valvuloplasty, becoming the main method for treating rheumatic heart valvular disease.

4. Valve selection

Currently, there are two main types of artificial valves: biological valves and mechanical valves. Each valve has its own characteristics, and the surgical costs of the two valves are not much different. Patients can choose according to their own situation. First of all, biological valves can be chosen for elderly patients over the age of 65. After bioprosthetic valve surgery, there is no need to take anticoagulants for life, which avoids the related complications caused by daily use of anticoagulants. Therefore, it is also a good choice for young women, especially those with pregnancy and childbearing needs. However, the average adaptive life of biological valves is about 10 years, which means that after bioprosthetic valve surgery, the valve may need to be replaced again due to valve failure.