The Heart and Rheumatic Disease

Immunologic Factors in Acute Rheumatic Fever Compared to Rheumatic Heart Disease

Background/Objective: To clarify the state of different immunologic factors in patients with acute rheumatic fever (ARF) and rheumatic heart disease (RHD) compared to healthy individuals.Patients and Methods: Patients with ARF (#21), patients with RHD six months after the onset of ARF (#19), and healthy children from the same age group with normal physical examination and no history of pharyngi...

Rheumatic fever and rheumatic heart disease.

Rheumatic heart disease poses a major challenge to public health and is the most prevalent heart disease in children. The major determinants of rheumatic fever and rheumatic heart disease are poverty, malnutrition, overcrowding, poor housing, and a shortage of health-care resources. Although cost-effective strategies for the prevention and control of these diseases are available, they remain un...

VI. Rheumatic fever and rheumatic heart disease.

Rheumatic heart disease.

Rheumatic heart disease, often neglected by media and policy makers, is a major burden in developing countries where it causes most of the cardiovascular morbidity and mortality in young people, leading to about 250,000 deaths per year worldwide. The disease results from an abnormal autoimmune response to a group A streptococcal infection in a genetically susceptible host. Acute rheumatic fever...

Rheumatic Heart Disease

The possible diagnostic value of an enlarged left atrial appendage (LAA) on the posterior-anterior or right anterior oblique chest film as a means of implicating a rheumatic etiology for mitral valve disease in children was investigated. Chest films were examined without prior knowledge of clinical or laboratory data, and the results were later correlated with this information in 113 children a...