What would cause the need to proceed to an aortic valve repair?

Earlier you mentioned that you would proceed to an aortic valve repair or replacement. What would cause you to proceed to that? So the reason why you would treat aortic valve disease is if it is giving you symptoms. Aortic valve is a valve that sits at the base of of the big artery that connects the heart to the rest of the body is called aorta. The valve sits at the outlet from the heart and the blood is pumped into the aorta through this valve. Over the course of six, seven decades, this valve starts to degenerate and majority of the patients would have some degree of narrowing of this valve as they get older. When you reach your seventh or eighth decade of life, this valve gets furred up or calcified, and that causes significant narrowing, which would then need to be treated, either surgically or with TAVI, as we call it. The commonest reason for treating aortic valve disease is symptoms of shortness of breath. If patients develop shortness of breath, which is progressive in nature, then one of the commonest reason for them to develop this symptom in the seventh or eighth decade of life is aortic stenosis or narrowing of the aortic valve. When that happens, they will be investigated and then they can be offered either a valve replacement or a repair depending on the nature of the condition that is affecting the aortic valve. There can be sometimes a leaky aortic valve, which is more commonly seen in younger patients. In them, again, the presenting symptom would generally be shortness of breath. And these patients are, as I said, are relatively young. They may have what we call as a congenitally abnormal bicuspid valve, which means that Instead of having three normal leaflets, one to 2% of the general population is born with two leaflets. So the valve is not a normal valve. However, it does its function normally for a good 30 to 40 years. And then when you get into your fourth or fifth decade of life, this valve starts to degenerate and starts to leak. And patients tend to present at an early stage rather than in the seventh or eighth decade of life. And these valves then are again assessed and treated appropriately. Either they can be repaired or they can be replaced depending on the nature of the pathological process that's involving this valve.