Yale School of Medicine researchers reported in the medical journal-Cardio Vascular Quality and Outcomes-patients with mitral valve damage (a valve in the heart) who had undergone cardiac operations lived longer.

Symptomatic mitral regurgitation (the damage to mitral valve due to old age) is a dangerous condition and surgery is the only therapy that either repairs the mitral valves of replaces them with new artificial valves. But then, the doctors found out risk of mortality in the operation besides other complications such as renal failure.

Dr. Dodson and his team who represent the NIH Heart, Lung and Blood Institute Center for Cardiovascular Outcomes Research (CCOR) at Yale University have analyzed the mortality rate in the US for patients who have undergone mitral valve surgery between 1999 and 2008.

They noticed a decline in the mortality rate by a couple of months in the patients who have undergone cardiac surgeries.  Dodson said: "The marked reduction in mortality after mitral valve surgery over time is an encouraging trend for cardiac surgery."

All in all, this study is likely to become another milestone in the cardiac related diseases, cures and surgeries.