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Congenital Heart Defects - Ebstein's
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| Normal Heart | 1. Severely malformed and displaced tricuspid valve resulting in regurgitation, or leakage, from the right ventricle back to the right atrium. 2. ASD allowing shunting of poorly oxygenated blood from the right atrium to the left atrium. |
Ebstein's anomaly, also called Ebstein's malformation, is a heart defect in which the tricuspid valve is abnormally formed. The tricuspid valve normally has three "flaps" or leaflets. In Ebstein's anomaly, one or two of the three leaflets are stuck to the wall of the heart and don't move normally. Often there's also a hole in the wall between the atria, the heart's two upper chambers.
This hole is called an atrial septal defect or ASD. (See info on ASD) Because the tricuspid valve is malformed in Ebstein's anomaly, it often doesn't work properly and may leak. If the valve leaks, some of the blood pumped by the right ventricle goes backwards through the valve with each heartbeat.
