In many developing countries, a disease called rheumatic fever damages the heart valves. Many different kinds of operations are available to treat aortic stenosis , including valve replacement , homografts and the Ross operation . The mitral valve also may be narrowed by disease, a condition called mitral stenosis . This is the common end pathway of advanced heart disease, and indicates that the heart is weakening and unable to continue its work. Treatment includes medications and operations like cardiomyoplasty , heart transplantation , LVAD and the recent innovation of a Brazilian surgeon, the Batista operation .
Doctors use many different kinds of tests to find out if a person suffers from heart disease.
These tests include an x-ray, EKG, echocardiogram, catheterization and angiography . More sophisticated tests like stress EKG or exercise testing, CT scans, MRI, Thallium scintigraphy and PET scans might be required sometimes. Some kinds of heart disease can be controlled by medicines and lifestyle modifications . Other kinds require intervention - catheter based or surgical. Operations for heart defects using a heart-lung machine is called Open Heart Surgery .