Aortic valve

Looks like

A valve of three half-moon cusps at the exit of the left ventricle into the aorta; some people are born with only two.

What it does

Stops blood falling back into the heart after each beat.

Keeping it well

It stiffens and narrows with age, earlier if it has two cusps. Chest tightness, breathlessness or fainting on exertion in someone with a murmur means severe narrowing until proven otherwise; replacement, by surgery or through a catheter, then prolongs life.

Its parts

• Right posterior cusp of aortic valve
• Anterior cusp of aortic valve
• Left posterior cusp of aortic valve

Related conditions

• 22q11.2 deletion syndrome (DiGeorge)
• Aortic stenosis
• Atrial flutter
• Cardiomyopathy (dilated, restrictive, arrhythmogenic)
• Chagas disease
• Congenital heart defects
• Coronary artery disease
• Diphtheria
• Down syndrome (trisomy 21)
• Eating disorders
• Extra heartbeats (ectopics and palpitations)
• Fainting (syncope)
• Friedreich's ataxia
• Heart failure
• High blood pressure
• High cholesterol
• Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy
• Hypothermia & frostbite
• Infective endocarditis
• Kawasaki disease
• Long QT syndrome
• Metabolic syndrome
• Myocarditis
• Orthostatic hypotension & POTS
• Panic disorder
• Pericardial effusion & tamponade
• Pericarditis
• Peripheral artery disease
• Phaeochromocytoma & hyperaldosteronism
• Pre-eclampsia
• Raynaud's phenomenon
• Rheumatic fever & rheumatic heart disease
• Sepsis
• Shock (circulatory failure)
• Sudden cardiac arrest
• Sudden infant death syndrome
• Supraventricular tachycardia
• Takotsubo (stress) cardiomyopathy
• Tuberous sclerosis complex
• Valve disease (stenosis & regurgitation)
• Vasculitis (GCA & others)
• Wolff–Parkinson–White syndrome