AIMS To investigate the involvement of enterovirus infection in chronic, rheumatic heart disease. METHODS AND RESULTS Formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded, surgical samples of valve tissue were examined for the presence of enteroviral RNA and virus capsid protein VP1 by in situ hybridization and immunostaining. Of 53 cases, 33 were patients with chronic rheumatic heart disease and 20 had Marfan'...

Perspectives Rheumatic heart disease comprises a small proportion of the total global disease burden according to current estimates. A rare complication of a strepto-coccal throat infection, rheumatic heart disease causes heart valve damage and progressive heart failure. The cause and course of this disease can be difficult to explain to policy-makers and to people at risk. The relative burden ...

Background Many pediatric rheumatic diseases persist into adulthood, with negative squeal from the disease or its treatment. We aimed to assess health related quality of life in a group of children with rheumatic diseases and its relation to disease activity and functional disability.  Materials and Methods Fifty one patients were divided into three groups: Group 1 includes 27 patients diagnose...

BACKGROUND Rheumatic symptoms were commonly described among soldiers who served in previous wars. OBJECTIVE To describe the frequency of rheumatology consultations, along with the diagnoses, and abnormal results on serologic testing in Gulf War veterans evaluated for Gulf War syndrome. METHODS The medical records of the first 250 consecutive Gulf War veterans referred to the comprehensive c...

Systemic rheumatic diseases have significant morbidity and mortality, due in large part to concurrent infections. The lung has been reported among the most frequent sites of infection in patients with rheumatic disease, who are susceptible to developing pneumonia sustained both by common pathogens and by opportunistic microorganisms. Patients with rheumatic disease show a peculiar vulnerability...

It is known that rheumatic heart disease frequently results in isolated mitral regurgitation without concomitant mitral stenosis, especially in countries with a high prevalence of rheumatic fever. However, more recent surgical pathologic data also have demonstrated a high incidence of mitral valve prolapse in cases of rheumatic heart disease, which suggests that rheumatic fever may be a cause o...

UNLABELLED Introduction Echocardiography is the diagnostic test of choice for latent rheumatic heart disease. The utility of echocardiography for large-scale screening is limited by high cost, complex diagnostic protocols, and time to acquire multiple images. We evaluated the performance of a brief hand-held echocardiography protocol and computer-assisted auscultation in detecting latent rheuma...

We designed a pilot study of a training module for nurses to perform rheumatic heart disease echocardiography screening in a resource-poor setting. The aim was to determine whether nurses given brief, focused, basic training in echocardiography could follow an algorithm to potentially identify cases of rheumatic heart disease requiring clinical referral, by undertaking basic two-dimensional and...