Although once rheumatic fever and its consequences were the major cause of valvular heart disease in the developed world, this disease has become exceedingly rare today. As a consequence, mitral stenosis (MS), which is usually caused by rheumatic fever, has also become rare. In fact, MS is most commonly found in the United States in patients who have emigrated here from areas where rheumatic fe...

English combines the roles of clinician and medical historian in his presentation of rheumatic fever as a "moving target" for doctors, epidemiologists, laboratory scientists and public health officials who struggled to understand and treat a disease that changed rapidly and dramatically with each generation of patients. In the eighteenth century, acute rheumatism, characterized by fever and art...

The difficulty in assessing the activity of the disease process in rheumatic fever and rheumatic heart disease is apparent from the large number of laboratory tests which have been used from time to time. In a previous study (Eastham, Szekely, and Davison, 1958) we have attempted to assess the value and limitations of the C-reactive protein test as a measure of rheumatic activity in a group of ...

INTRODUCTION................................................................... 97 A BRIEF HISTORY .............. .................................................... 98 ETIOLOGY: EVIDENCE FOR THE GROUP A STREPTOCOCCAL ETIOLOGY OF RHEUMATIC FEVER ................................. ................................. 98 Immunological Evidence............................................................

Background: Takayasu’s arteritis (TA) has been associated with many conditions. Herein described is a case of TA in a patient with rheumatic fever complicated with Sydenham’s chorea. Case Report: A 17-year-old female presented at age 6 with rheumatic fever followed by chorea a month later. At the age of 16, she developed a blood pressure discrepancy between the arms and faint pulses. Computed t...

The observation that individuals who acquire rheumatic fever following a streptococcal infection usually respond with higher streptococcal antibody titres than those who have streptococcal infections uncomplicated by rheumatic fever has been reported repeatedly (1-7). There are exceptions, but, if rheumatics are considered as a group, this observation seems to hold true and it has led to an ass...

Rheumatic fever (RF) is characterized by a non-suppurative inflammatory process that begins after a group A betahemolytic streptococci infection. Its prevalence is higher in developing countries, such as Brazil. However, in our country, systematic epidemiologic data on the disease are scarce and incomplete. Rheumatic fever has an estimated incidence of 3% among Brazilian children and adolescent...

Rheumatic fever (RF) and rheumatic heart disease (RHD) are non-suppuratives complications of group A beta haemolytic streptococcal (GABHS) pharyngitis due to a delayed immune response. When talking about epidemiology it varies from 1.0 to 5.4/1,000 school children (mean 2.1). The incidence of rheumatic fever (RF) varies from 0.2 to 0.75/1,000/year (mean 0.54) in school children 5 15 years of ag...

A number of epidemiological studies on rheumatic fever have been made, but in this disease, this field of endeavor is in its infancy as compared with other lines of approach. It has seemed to us, however, that here is another valuable weapon which may be brought to bear, not only because we would like to know more about the epidemiology of rheumatic fever, but it may tell us more about the natu...

Rheuniatic fever is a recurrent disease which frequently can be prevented. Infection with group A streptococci precipitates both initial and recurrent attacks; therefore, prevention of rheumatic fever and rheumatic heart disease depends upon the control of streptococcal infections. This may be accomplished, one by prevention of streptococcal infections in rheumatic subjects, and, two by early a...