Mitral Valve Prolapse: When t... Video Transcript

Participants

, Richard Blyton Devereux MD, Adolph M. Hutter Jr MD, MACC, , Michael Eckstein MD

Summary

Heart trouble may sound like a click away if you have mitral valve prolapse (MVP). But this common misfiring in the heart is seldom serious. Learn what can be done if your MVP is out.

Webcast Transcript

ANNOUNCER: Millions of Americans have it. And most don't discover it until they visit their doctor for a routine exam. It's a heart condition called mitral valve prolaspe also known as MVP.

DOLPH HUTTER, MD: Mitral valve prolapse is quite common. Perhaps 3 to 4 percent of the population have it. It's more common in women than in men, and it's a totally benign situation for the vast majority of people.

RICHARD DEVEREUX, MD: In the normally functioning heart, blood returning from the body goes to the lungs to get oxygen and then comes back through a chamber called the left atrium to get to the main pumping chamber of the heart, the left ventricle. In between those two chambers sits one of the heart's valves, the mitral valve, which opens wide to let blood through while the left ventricle is relaxing, and then normally closes and stays within the left ventricle during the contraction of that chamber.

DOLPH HUTTER, MD: People with mitral valve prolapse have a little redundancy of the valve. So instead of opening and closing, part of the valve can actually bulge up a little bit. And when it bulges up, it can cause a little sound called a "click," and when it bulges up, it can pull away from the other valve and cause a little leak through the valve, and we can hear that as a murmur. And so we call it the click-murmur syndrome.

RICHARD DEVEREUX, MD: Mitral valve prolapse is diagnosed in either of two ways: by a physician listening to the heart and hearing characteristic sounds called a click and murmur; or by an echocardiogram, a high-frequency sound test that visualizes the abnormal motion of the heart valves.

ANNOUNCER: The exact cause of MVP is unknown but doctors believe it's a genetic condition and may have to do with certain body types. It has also been associated with the connective tissue disorder Marfan syndrome.

DOLPH HUTTER, MD: People with mitral valve prolapse are more likely to have other musculoskeletal abnormalities or connective tissue abnormalities. They may be taller, thinner people. They may have scoliosis, or curvature of the spine. So there is a bit of a body build association with mitral valve prolapse.

ANNOUNCER: Although most people with MVP don't feel different, people with a more pronounced defect can experience symptoms.

RICHARD DEVEREUX, MD: It is associated with an increase in the frequency of palpitations, awareness of extra heartbeats or runs of rapid heart-beating. A small percentage of people with mitral prolapse develop significant leak of blood across the mitral valve

ANNOUNCER: This leak is called mitral regurgitation and people with mitral regurgitation may present symptoms of fatigue, exhaustion, lightheadedness, palpitations, cough, and shortness of breath. But there are some people with it that don't present symptoms right away.

Chest pain is another symptom sometimes found in people with mvp, but this symptom along with some of the others may be coincidental and are not necessarily caused by the condition itself

RICHARD DEVEREUX, MD: What turns out to be the case is that people with chest pain seek out cardiologists for evaluation and, therefore, if they have mitral prolapse, it's diagnosed. It's just like people with headaches seek neurologists and so any condition that they might happen to have would be disproportionately be diagnosed by the neurologist.

ANNOUNCER: The majority of people with mitral valve prolapse don't need treatment. However, there are situations that require precautionary measures.