With no signs or symptoms that anything was physically wrong, Kathleen O'Donnell, a 44-year-old hedge fund manager and part-time personal trainer, one day went into cardiac arrest while working out with a client. O'Donnell, a healthy living enthusiast, later discovered that she was suffering from severe mitral valve regurgitation, a critical heart disorder that causes blood to leak back across the valve and into the lungs. Mitral heart valve disease is a common problem that may be overlooked during a routine physical exam because of the faint, hard-to-identify heart murmur associated with it.

Complex mitral valve surgery for Barlow's disease is a reliable and durable operation.This photo shows the heart of a 40-year-old with severe Barlow's disease and anterior leaflet prolapse, as well as a posterior leaflet prolapse with a severely extended posterior leaflet.

An important step in the operation is measuring the angioplasty ring to the anterior leaflet size and dimension in patients with Barlow's disease to ensure that systolic anterior motion (SAM) is prevented. Once the angioplasty ring is placed and inspected, saline is then injected into the left ventricle to alleviate any residual leakage. Having found none, the incision is closed.

The results of this operation confirmed normal leaflet height, no further prolapsing, a normal height to the posterior leaflet, and most important, the absence of mitral regurgitation.