(Ivanhoe Broadcast News) -- Chances are you know someone who has had heart problems. In fact, one in five people over the age of 55 has a problem with their mitral valve. A new alternative to open heart surgery can get their blood flowing again.
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Nothing keeps 77-year-old Josephine Herndon from shopping, but her hobby was slowed down by a heart problem called mitral regurgitation.
"In the store, I sat down, and I was breathing pretty heavily," Herndon told Ivanhoe. "I could barely make it back to the car."
Mitral regurgitation is a condition in which the heart's mitral valve doesn't close tightly, allowing blood to flow backward into the heart.
"I had a leaky valve and didn't even know it," Herndon said.
"A lot of these patients have shortness of breath," George Hanzel, M.D., an interventional cardiologist at William Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oak, Mich., told Ivanhoe. "The main thing they have is fatigue, exercise intolerance, shortness of breath and swelling."
Herndon was one of the first patients in the United States to have the mitral clip procedure. First, interventional cardiologists inserted a catheter into her groin up into the mitral valve. Next, a clip was fed through. The clip grasped and tightened the valves' leaflets, preventing blood from leaking.
"By pulling them together and approximating them, it reduces the leakiness," Dr. Hanzel said.
The clip stays and keeps blood from leaking, and the catheter is removed. The procedure takes two hours, the same as for open-heart surgery. The difference is in the recovery -- down from months to just weeks.
"Patients typically say they feel better," Dr. Hanzel said. "They can breathe better. They can do more without having to stop and rest."
Herndon's mitral regurgitation was reduced from severe to trivial, and she's back looking for bargains again.
"I always did love to go shopping," Herdon said.
The mitral clip procedure is good for patients who have a weak heart and may not make it through traditional surgery. The procedure is being investigated in clinical trials in 38 hospitals across the country.
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