The aortic valve sits inside the aorta. The valve has three cusps that open to let blood out and come together to close the valve off. It's supposed to be a one way valve allowing oxygen rich blood to flow out to the body. It should then close tightly when the heart relaxes and refills. Think of it like a door. It should open wide to let everyone out, but then close tightly preventing anything from coming in. The bicuspid valve only has two cusps, often times the three cusps are present but two are fused together. With bicuspid valves, one of two things can happen (or sometimes both simultaneously). The valve can become narrow and calcified as the disease process advances, or it can become progressively leakier. Mine is very leaky. The blood goes out fine, but then leaks back in to the left ventricle causing the heart to work very hard. This results in the heart chamber getting really big and thick due to the extra work to pump a large volume of blood forward. Eventuall...
Woot, Woot!! Good job, Linnenburger's!! Keep it up!!
ReplyDeleteGreat news!! Julie x
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