Khalil Ullah, Syed Afzal Ahmed, Shahida Badsha, Ashur Khan, Masood ur Rehman Kiani.
Rheumatic Heart Disease - A Study of surgically excised cardiac valves and biopsies.
J Coll Physicians Surg Pak Jan ;12(9):542-5.

Objective: To examine the prevalence, age, sex and topographical distribution of the rheumatic heart disease and its morphology. Design: A cross-sectional descriptive study. Place and Duration of Study: Pathology Department, Army Medical College, Rawalpindi between 1981-1990. Patients and Methods: Five hundred and twenty-six surgically excised cardiac valves and biopsies were studied in the laboratory in the light of clinical data. Results: Carditis constituted 87.4% of the cardiac valvular disease with 23.5% active and 71% healed rheumatic lesions. About 5.5 % had morphological appearances consistent with RHD. The lesions affected mitral valves (37.0%), aortic valve (22.1%), mitral and aortic valves together (21.0%) and atrial appendages (19.0%). Presentation was mostly as mitral stenosis either isolated (49.2%) or combined (31.0%), aortic stenosis (11.7%) and aortic incompetence with regurgitation (7.3%). Conclusion: Rheumatic carditis constitutes a significant proportion of cardiac valvular disease and affects comparatively younger age, with slight male preponderance and primarily affects mitral valve.

PakMediNet -Pakistan's largest Database of Pakistani Medical Journals - http://www.pakmedinet.com