If you’ve been diagnosed with Barlow’s Mitral Valve Disease, it’s important to see a surgeon who has experience repairing this complex, degenerative form of mitral valve prolapse, typically prolapse that involves both mitral leaflets.

The complexity of surgical lesions in patients who have bi-leaflet prolapse often include excessively thick and billowing leaflet segments, chordae tendineae elongation and/or rupture, and severe dilation of the valve as well as the heart chambers. Many patients will develop atrial fibrillation, as their heart chambers enlarge.

With my patient’s permission to post, this is a video taken today in the operating room during a complex mitral valve repair operation for bi-leaflet valve prolapse in a patient with Barlow’s Mitral Valve Disease.

In this video, I show the anatomy of the underlying pathology as well as explaining how we were able obtain a successful repair.

Remember, it’s important to ask your surgeon how many mitral valve repair operations they perform yearly and also their success rate. A qualified surgeon should perform more than 25 mitral valve repairs per year with a repair rate of greater than 95% rather than replacing the valve with an artificial one. Always better to have your mitral valve repaired!

Most important of all, never hesitate to ask for a second opinion!