Your consultant might recommend tests like a CT or an echocardiogram, an ultrasound scan. Our technicians use the latest technology to create 3D images of your heart.
Heart valve care
Your heart valves
You have four heart valves. Each one makes sure your blood flows in one direction in and out of the heart. The mitral valve and tricuspid valve control blood flow from the top chambers of your heart to the lower chambers. The aortic valve and pulmonary valve control blood flow out of your heart. It’s the opening and closing of valves you hear every time you hear your heartbeat.
If a valve can’t open properly, it can restrict how much blood can flow through. If a valve can’t close properly, blood can leak back in the wrong direction. Both problems - a narrowed valve or a leaky valve - put extra pressure on your heart to pump harder, or to pump more blood. Other things can affect your valves too, including infection.
You might experience shortness of breath or tiredness. Or you might not have symptoms at all. Our consultants will help you find the right diagnosis, and the right treatment - whether it’s medicine or a valve replacement procedure.
Meet a team of world-leading heart valve specialists
No matter what heart valve issue you’re experiencing, at our hospitals you’ll meet someone who’s published research on how to treat it. They might even have been the first person to perform and perfect the treatment you need. Our consultants have been performing transcatheter aortic valve implantations (TAVI) since the procedure was pioneered in 2007, for instance. They also train surgeons across the world on how to perform keyhole valve surgeries.
Finding the right diagnosis and treatment for you
Creating images of your heart
MitraClip®
A MINIMALLY INVASIVE TREATMENT FOR MITRAL VALVE LEAK
The repair of a mitral valve to reduce regurgitation using a highly manoeuvrable trans-catheter technique
Taking medicine
Your consultant might prescribe medicine to lower blood pressure, slow the heart rate, stop clots forming or reduce the volume of blood the heart has to pump.
Heart valve surgery
Heart valve replacement an heart valve repair. Surgery to correct heart valve problems by either replacing the affected valve with a new valve or repairing the existing valve.
Modelling how a valve replacement will fit, sit and work
FEops technology uses clinical images to build a computer model of an individual patient’s heart valve. It then models how a replacement valve device will fit, sit and work in that patient’s heart. It can model what happens if the valve is a different size or sits in a different position. Consultants can use it to predict complications – and so avoid them.
TAVIs are transforming care for heart valve disease
Transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI) is a minimally invasive procedure to replace the aortic valve.
A team of cardiologists, anaesthetists, nurses and surgeons guide a tube from the top of the leg to the heart. This acts as a railroad, delivering the new heart valve to exactly the right place. When it reaches its destination, it’s unfurled, or expanded into place using a balloon — without a single stitch.
Leading the UK for minimal access valve replacements
A minimal access mitral valve replacement needs a 1cm incision for a camera, and a 4cm incision big enough to thread the new valve through. Small incisions mean a fast recovery for patients, but a highly complex procedure for surgeons. This is why only around 5 in 100 UK valve procedures are performed like this. Our surgeons perform around two thirds of all minimal access procedures in the UK.
Locations
London Bridge Hospital
27 Tooley Street SE1 2PR London
The Harley Street Clinic
35 Weymouth Street W1G 8BJ London
The Wellington Hospital
Wellington Place St John's Wood NW8 9LE London
Get the best cardiac care with HCA UK
We provide exceptional specialist care in all areas of cardiology and cardiac surgery across our network of outpatient centres and hospitals. As the UK's No.1 provider of private cardiac care, our multidisciplinary teams have cared for thousands of patients, just like you.
If heart symptoms are affecting your quality of life, we’re here to help. Our heart team is available to book an appointment with a cardiac specialist.