title: Increasing detection of rheumatic heart disease with echocardiography.
abstract: Rheumatic heart disease (RHD) is estimated to affect over 20 million people worldwide, the vast majority being in developing countries. Screening for RHD has been recommended by the WHO since 2004. Conventionally, auscultation has been used for diagnosing RHD. Auscultation has its limitation and may not detect mild cases. A large number of studies have reported echocardiographic screening for RHD over the last several years. Most of these studies report an almost 10-fold higher prevalence of RHD by echocardiography as compared to conventional method of auscultation. Early diagnosis of such mild cases may be important as instituting secondary prophylaxis in such cases may reduce the burden of the disease. However, several concerns remain about the significance and natural history of these minor valvular changes detected by echocardiography. Whether secondary prophylaxis will reverse these abnormalities is also unclear. Long term follow up studies are required to answer some of these concerns.
authors.affiliation: All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India.
authors.forename: Anita
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Saxena
mesh_terms: D004452:Echocardiography / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods* / Q000639:trends; D006351:Heart Valves / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging; D006801:Humans; D015995:Prevalence; D012214:Rheumatic Heart Disease / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging* / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000517:prevention & control
keywords: diagnosis; echocardiography; rheumatic fever; rheumatic heart disease; screening