Abstract
Rheumatic heart disease (RHD) is a major burden in low- to mid-income countries, where each year it accounts for over a million premature deaths associated with severe valve disease. Life-saving valve replacement procedures are not available to the majority of affected RHD patients, contributing to an increased risk of death in young adults and creating a devastating impact. In December 2017, a group of representatives of major cardiothoracic societies and industry, discussed the plight of the millions of patients who suffer from RHD. A comprehensive solution based on this global partnership was outlined in “The Cape Town Declaration on Access to Cardiac Surgery in the Developing World”. The key challenge in controlling RHD is related to identification and removal of barriers to the translation of existing knowledge into policy, programs, and practice to provide high-quality care for patients with RHD. This review provides an overview on RHD by emphasizing the disease medical and economic burdens worldwide, risk factors, recent advance for early disease detection, and overall preventive strategies.
Highlights
Acute rheumatic fever (ARF) is the result of an abnormal response to pharyngitis caused by infection caused by a group A streptococcal infection in a genetically susceptible host[1,2,3,4]
The long-term damage to cardiac valves caused by ARF is known as rheumatic heart disease (RHD), which is an important cause of mortality in resource-poor settings around the world[4]
Severe valve disease, which is potentially amenable to intervention, remains strongly associated with mortality[6,8], especially where life-saving cardiac surgery is either scarce or absent
Summary
Acute rheumatic fever (ARF) is the result of an abnormal response to pharyngitis caused by infection caused by a group A streptococcal infection in a genetically susceptible host[1,2,3,4]. The long-term damage to cardiac valves caused by ARF is known as rheumatic heart disease (RHD), which is an important cause of mortality in resource-poor settings around the world[4]. Rheumatic heart disease (RHD) is a major burden in low- to mid-income countries, where it is the leading cause of cardiovascular death in children and young adults[5,6,7].
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