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Heart valve disease is when one or more of your heart valves do not properly.
The heart contains valves that work much like one-way doors. They allow blood to move in one direction from one heart chamber to the next. There are four valves in your heart that move blood forward between other heart structures:
- Mitral valve: between the left atrium and left ventricle.
- Aortic valve: between the left ventricle and aorta.
- Tricuspid valve: between the right atrium and the right ventricle.
- Pulmonic valve: between the right ventricle and the lungs.
Basically, valves are made up of two or three thin, flexible pieces of tissue called “leaflets” that work together to shut the valve “door” each time the heart pumps blood from one chamber to the next, without allowing it to flow backward.
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