Mayo Clinic Health Manager
Get free personalized health guidance for you and your family.
Get Started
About our e-newsletters
- Free e-newsletters
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- We do not share your e-mail address
Housecall, our weekly general-interest e-newsletter, keeps you up to date on a wide variety of health topics with timely, reliable, practical information, recipes, blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts and more. Our biweekly topic-specific e-newsletters also include blogs, questions and answers with Mayo Clinic experts, and other useful information that will help you manage your health.
Housecall Archives
Mayo Clinic Housecall
Stay up to date on the latest health information.
What you get
- Free weekly e-newsletter
- Mayo Clinic expertise
- Recipes, tools and other helpful information
- We do not share your e-mail address
Treatments and drugs
By Mayo Clinic staffMedications sometimes can ease symptoms of aortic valve stenosis. However, the only way to eliminate aortic valve stenosis is surgery to repair or replace the valve and open up the passageway.
Surgery isn't always needed right away. If tests reveal that you have mild to moderate aortic valve stenosis and you have no symptoms, your doctor will schedule checkups to carefully monitor the valve so that surgery can be done at the appropriate time.
In general, surgery is necessary when narrowing becomes severe and symptoms develop. Some people never develop severe aortic valve stenosis, so they never need surgery. For others, the condition gets worse and surgery is necessary.
Medications
No medications can reverse aortic valve stenosis. However, your doctor may prescribe certain medications to help your heart, such as ones to control heart rhythm disturbances associated with aortic valve stenosis. Research suggests that lowering cholesterol, especially with statin medications, may prevent or slow the development of aortic stenosis. Ask your doctor if you need to lower your cholesterol or consider these medications.
Procedures
You may need valve repair or replacement to treat aortic valve stenosis. Although nonsurgical approaches are possible in some cases, surgery is the primary treatment for this condition.
Nonsurgical techniques
Therapies to repair or replace the aortic valve without surgery include:
- Balloon valvuloplasty (valvotomy). Occasionally, repairing the aortic valve is an option. Balloon valvuloplasty uses a soft, thin tube (catheter) tipped with a balloon. A doctor guides the catheter through a blood vessel in your arm or groin to your heart and into your narrowed aortic valve. Once in position, a balloon at the tip of the catheter is inflated. The balloon pushes open the aortic valve and stretches the valve opening, improving blood flow. The balloon is then deflated and the catheter with balloon is guided back out of your body. Balloon valvuloplasty may relieve aortic valve stenosis and its symptoms, especially in infants and children. However, in adults, the procedure isn't usually successful, and the valve tends to narrow again even after initial success. For these reasons, doctors rarely use balloon valvuloplasty today to treat aortic valve stenosis in adults, except in people who are too sick to undergo surgery.
- Percutaneous aortic valve replacement. Aortic valve replacement, the most common treatment for aortic valve stenosis, has traditionally been performed with open-heart surgery. A new approach currently under study has made it possible to perform the procedure with a catheter. This option is available only on a research basis and is usually reserved for individuals at increased risk of complications from aortic valve surgery.(9)
Aortic valve surgery
Surgical procedures to treat aortic valve stenosis include:
- Aortic valve replacement. This is the primary surgical treatment for aortic valve stenosis. Your surgeon removes the narrowed aortic valve and replaces it with a mechanical valve or a tissue valve. Mechanical valves, made from metal, are durable, but they carry the risk of blood clots forming on or near the valve. If you receive a mechanical valve, you'll need to take an anticoagulant medication, such as warfarin (Coumadin), for life to prevent blood clots. Tissue valves — which may come from a pig, cow or human cadaver donor — often need to be replaced. Another type of tissue valve replacement that uses your own pulmonary valve (autograft) is sometimes possible. Your doctor can discuss the risks and benefits of each type of heart valve with you.
- Valvuloplasty. In rare cases, surgical repair may be more effective than balloon valvuloplasty, such as in infants born with an aortic valve in which the leaflets of the valve are fused together. Using traditional surgical tools, a cardiac surgeon operates on the valve and separates these leaflets to reduce stenosis and improve blood flow. Or valve repair may involve removing calcium deposits on or near the valve. This helps clear the valve passageway.
Aortic valve stenosis can be treated effectively with surgery. However, you may still be at risk of irregular heart rhythms even after you've been treated for aortic valve stenosis. You may need to take medications to lower that risk.
- Aortic valve stenosis (AS) and aortic insufficiency (AI). American Heart Association. http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=1659. Accessed July 6, 2009.
- Aortic stenosis. The Merck Manuals: The Merck Manual for Healthcare Professionals. http://www.merck.com/mmpe/sec07/ch076/ch076c.html. Accessed July 6, 2009.
- Grimard BH, et al. Aortic stenosis: Diagnosis and treatment. American Family Physician. 2008;78:717.
- Otto CM, et al. Valvular heart disease. In: Libby P, et al., eds. Braunwald's Heart Disease: A Textbook of Cardiovascular Medicine. 8th ed. Philadelphia, Pa.: Saunders Elsevier; 2007. http://www.mdconsult.com/book/player/book.do?method=display&type=bookPage&decorator=header&eid=4-u1.0-B978-1-4160-4106-1..50065-0&uniq=148441160&isbn=978-1-4160-4106-1&sid=860585891. Accessed July 6, 2009.
- Otto CM. Pathophysiology and clinical features of valvular aortic stenosis in adults. http://www.uptodate.com/home/index.html. Accessed July 6, 2009.
- Ardehali R, et al. Valvular heart disease. In: Nilsson KR, et al. The Osler Medical Handbook. Philadelphia, Pa.: Saunders Elsevier; 2006. http://www.mdconsult.com/das/book/body/148441160-4/860446560/1387/28.html#4-u1.0-B0-323-03748-8..50017-8_181. Accessed July 6, 2009.
- Carabello BA. Valvular heart disease. In: Goldman L, et al., eds. Goldman: Cecil Medicine. 23rd ed. Philadelphia, Pa.: Saunders Elsevier; 2007. http://www.mdconsult.com/das/book/body/148441160-6/860446560/1492/318.html#4-u1.0-B978-1-4160-2805-5..50080-X_3105. Accessed July 6, 2009.
- Otto CM. Medical therapy in asymptomatic aortic stenosis in adults. http://www.uptodate.com/home/index.html. Accessed July 6, 2009.
- Grogan M (expert opinion). Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minn. July 19, 2009.
