March 6, 2023 – A recent procedure could help with the issue of leaky tricuspid valves in the guts, in line with a Study published In The New England Journal of Medicine.
The tricuspid valve allows oxygen-poor blood to flow between the proper and left ventricles of the guts. If the valve leaks, blood flows backwards and pools in various parts of the body, causing fatigue, difficulty respiratory, and swollen hands and feet, amongst other symptoms.
In the brand new procedure called transcatheter edge-to-edge repair (TEER), doctors attach staples to the tricuspid valve, making it smaller and reducing the chance of leakage (called regurgitation).
“Tricuspid TEER was safe for patients with severe tricuspid regurgitation, reduced the severity of tricuspid regurgitation, and was associated with improved quality of life,” the study concluded.
The tricuspid valve is usually called the “forgotten valve” since it is little studied in comparison with other parts of the guts, in line with the National Library of Medicine. About 1.6 million Americans have the issue Tricuspid regurgitation.
Currently, the one medical treatment is the administration of loop diuretics, medications that temporarily flush excess fluid from the patient's body. The New York Times reported on the clips in an article. Over time, fluid retention worsens until the kidneys fail. Open-heart surgery just isn’t often an option because individuals with tricuspid regurgitation often have a lot of comorbidities or other aspects.
The study was conducted by Abbott, a medical device company, and included 350 patients with a mean age of 78. About half received the clip and the opposite half a loop diuretic. After one month, 87% of participants with the clip reported that the severity of their tricuspid regurgitation had decreased, compared with 4.8% of the group that received loop diuretics, Abbott said in a Press release.
“I immediately felt better,” said 86-year-old Adelaide Effertz of Pine City, Minnesota, who received the clip. The times“It's just wonderful.” Effertz said she now not suffers from the extraordinary fatigue that forced her to take just a few naps every afternoon.