OBJECTIVES Rheumatic fever is a highly prevalent disease in Brazil, and it poses a major public health problem. It is the leading cause of acquired heart disease in childhood and adolescence. The aim of this study was to evaluate the gene expression of ET-3 and its receptors, in replaced rheumatic mitral valves. METHODS We studied the gene expression of endothelin-3 (ET-3) and its receptors, ...

In our country, rheumatic disease is still one of the most prevalent causes of mitral valve regurgitation. Unlike mitral valve regurgitation caused by myxomatous degeneration or ischemic disease, that caused by rheumatic disease may have restriction and thickening of the leaflets, and marked abnormalities in the subvalvular region 1, which are also commonly associated with valvular stenosis. Rh...

Background Threshold countries like South Africa provide cardiac surgery to a largely indigent population with rheumatic heart disease. Although repairs are a preferred treatment modality many rheumatic mitral valves can only be replaced. In view of significantly improved primary health care and broad access of the indigent population to communication technology we revisited the efficacy of mit...

M itral valve stenosis of origin other than rheumatic fever is a rare entity. Giant-cell myocarditis is an extremely rare, with poor prognosis, probably autoimmune, granulomatous disease of the heart. Progressive congestive heart failure, intraventricular conduction defects and ventricular arrhythmias, which in many cases can be fatal, are the usual manifestations of this disease. On the contra...

BACKGROUND Mitral stenosis, one of the grave consequences of rheumatic heart disease, was generally considered to take decades to evolve. However, several studies from the developing countries have shown that mitral stenosis follows a different course from that seen in the developed countries. This study reports the prevalence, severity and common complications of mitral stenosis in the first a...

Infective endocarditis (IE) is the infection of inner endothelial layer of the heart including the heart valves and it may present as rapidly progressive or manifest itself as subacute or chronic disease. The epidemiology of infective endocarditis has been changed over the past few decades and the incidence of IE in children in United States and Canada is 1 in 1250 pediatric hospital admissions...

Left ventricular cineangiography was performed in 37 patients with mitral regurgitation. Twenty-one patients had rheumatic mitral valve disease determined by careful surgical and pathologic examination, 10 had papillary muscle dysfunction, and six had chordae tendineae rupture. Fourteen of the 16 patients considered to have nonrheumatic mitral regurgitation were confirmed surgically; the other ...