Doppler Echocardiography Imaging as a Useful Tool in Detecting Rheumatic Silent Carditis

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Rheumatic fever and rheumatic heart disease continue to be an important public health problem in developing countries. Doppler echocardiography is now widely used for early detection and recurrence of clinical evident carditis (CC) and silent (subclinical) carditis (SC). In this present study, we performed Doppler echocardiography in ARF children clinically diagnosed by the Jones criteria in order to compare its effectiveness in detecting single/multi-valvular lesions over clinical evaluation alone and they were followed with repeat examinations over a period of 6 months. METHODS: A total of 57 consecutive patients diagnosed with acute rheumatic fever were included in the study. The patients without clinical evidence but with echocardiographic findings of carditis were diagnosed as having subclinical carditis. RESULTS: Acute rheumatic fever was diagnosed in 57 patients, and 38 of these had carditis. Among the 38 clinically 25(65.8%) patients were detected to have cardiac lesion. Echocardiography showed thirteen (34.2%) more patients were affected with carditis. The prevalence of SC was 13(22.8%) among these 57 patients. 51patients were followed up for 6months, and 11 of those had SC. CONCLUSION: It is suggested that Doppler echocardiography be performed in all patients with suspected acute rheumatic fever for early detection of SC. Echocardiography should be used as a diagnostic criterion in order not to miss a diagnosis of SC.