The Heart & Vascular Institute’s Structural Heart Disease Program specializes in defects or abnormalities in the heart’s infrastructure – the valves, wall and chambers – that do not affect the organ’s blood vessels.
Some people are born with structural heart disease. An atrial septal defect, for example, is a congenital abnormality with a hole or other defect caused by a failure of septal tissue to form in the area that separates the upper chambers of the heart, the left and right atrium. Likewise, Patent Foramen Ovale is a hole (usually smaller) in the same area that exists in every human fetus but closes in most people shortly after childbirth.
Other people develop structural heart disease like aortic stenosis and mitral valve regurgitation through normal wear and tear as they age, infection or other conditions.
The Structural Heart Disease Program helps you manage congenital abnormalities, diagnose underlying conditions that damage or otherwise change the heart and treat acquired structural heart conditions, when possible, with new technology that does not require conventional open-heart surgery.
Heart & Vascular Institute’s Structural Heart Program