Mumtaz Ali Shaikh.
Cardiac valvular lesions in patients with Rheumatic Heart Disease.
J Pak Inst Med Sci Jan ;15(1):862-5.

Rheumatic heart disease is a common presentation, but only a few patients are recommended for timely surgery, as most of the patients are reluctant to surgery because of expense, lack of education and inconvenience. This cross sectional study was conducted at Isra University Hospital Hyderabad between 2003 and 2004. The objective of the study was to evaluate the cardiac lesions in patients of rheumatic heart disease. Fifty patients of chronic rheumatic heart disease were randomly selected. Patients were examined in detail. Their investigations performed were, routine blood tests, ECG, Chest radiographs, Echo and Doppler studies. Twenty four (48%) patients were males and twenty six (52%) females. Their ages were between 12 to 70 years. The commonest valvular lesion was predominant mitral stenosis (48%), followed by predominant mitral regurgitation (42%), aortic regurgitation (8%) and aortic stenosis along with mitral valve disease (2%), respectively. Govt and NGOs can arrange a programme of mass education to make population familiar with the rheumatic fever, so that disease can be prevented, its progress can be slowed down and timely surgery of such patients could be arranged.

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