Mechanisms, evaluation and management of tricuspid regurgitation

Abstract

With respect to heart valve diseases, until recently tricuspid valve regurgitation has not received as much attention as the aortic or mitral valve lesions and therefore it has been often referred as the “forgotten valve” (Mascherbauer and Maurer 2010). While trivial or mild tricuspid regurgitation may be detected in 80–90% of normal subjects undergoing modern echocardiography (Singh et al. 1999; Klein et al. 1990) and it is usually benign, hemodynamically significant tricuspid regurgitation can lead to debilitating symptoms and it is associated with poor prognosis in a number of cardiovascular diseases (Nath et al. 2004).