Mayo Clinic Health Manager
Get free personalized health guidance for you and your family.
Get Started
close window
Housecall Archives
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
close window
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
Risk factors
By Mayo Clinic staffSeveral factors can increase your risk of mitral valve regurgitation, including:
- A history of mitral valve prolapse or mitral valve stenosis. However, having either condition doesn't necessarily mean you'll develop mitral valve regurgitation. In fact, most people with mitral valve prolapse never develop severe regurgitation.
- A past heart attack. A heart attack can damage your heart, affecting the function of the mitral valve.
- Use of certain medications. People who take ergotamine and similar medicines for migraines and those who took pergolide (now removed from the market) have an increased risk of mitral regurgitation. Similar problems were noted with the appetite suppressants fenfluramine and dexfenfluramine, which are no longer sold.
- Infections such as endocarditis or rheumatic fever. Infections can damage the mitral valve.
- Congenital heart disease. Some people are born with an abnormal mitral valve prone to regurgitation. Often babies born with heart defects may have more than one problem, such as a hole in the upper chambers of the heart (atrial septal defect) and an abnormal mitral valve.
- Age. By middle age, many people have some mitral valve regurgitation caused by natural deterioration of the valve. However, mitral valve regurgitation causes symptoms in only a small percentage of older adults.
References
- Gaasch WH. Overview of the management of chronic mitral regurgitation. http://www.uptodate.com/home/index.html. Accessed July 14, 2009.
- Otto CM. Etiology, clinical features, and evaluation of chronic mitral regurgitation. http://www.uptodate.com/home/index.html. Accessed July 14, 2009.
- Heart valves. American Heart Association. http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=4598. Accessed July 14, 2009.
- Nishimura RA. ACC/AHA guideline update on valvular heart disease: Focused update on infective endocarditis. Circulation. 2008;118:887.
- Bonow RO, et al. ACC/AHA 2006 Guidelines for the management of patients with valvular heart disease: Executive summary a report of the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association Task Force on Practice Guidelines. Circulation. 2006;114:450.
- Gaasch WH. Indications for and types of corrective surgery in severe chronic mitral valve regurgitation. http://www.uptodate.com/home/index.html. Accessed July 14, 2009.
