Pediatric Rheumatic Heart Disease
- Author: Thomas K Chin, MD; Chief Editor: Stuart Berger, MD more...
Background
Rheumatic heart disease is the most serious complication of rheumatic fever. Acute rheumatic fever follows 0.3% of cases of group A beta-hemolytic streptococcal pharyngitis in children. As many as 39% of patients with acute rheumatic fever may develop varying degrees of pancarditis with associated valve insufficiency, heart failure, pericarditis, and even death. With chronic rheumatic heart disease, patients develop valve stenosis with varying degrees of regurgitation, atrial dilation, arrhythmias, and ventricular dysfunction. Chronic rheumatic heart disease remains the leading cause of mitral valve stenosis and valve replacement in adults in the United States.
Acute rheumatic fever and rheumatic heart disease are thought to result from an autoimmune response, but the exact pathogenesis remains unclear. Although rheumatic heart disease was the leading cause of death 100 years ago in people aged 5-20 years in the United States, incidence of this disease has decreased in developed countries, and the mortality rate has dropped to just above 0% since the 1960s. Worldwide, rheumatic heart disease remains a major health problem. Chronic rheumatic heart disease is estimated to occur in 5-30 million children and young adults; 90,000 individuals die from this disease each year. The mortality rate from this disease remains 1-10%. A comprehensive resource provided by the World Health Organization (WHO) addresses the diagnosis and treatment.[1]
Pathophysiology
Rheumatic fever develops in some children and adolescents following pharyngitis with group A beta-hemolytic Streptococcus (ie, Streptococcus pyogenes). The organisms attach to the epithelial cells of the upper respiratory tract and produce a battery of enzymes allowing them to damage and invade human tissues. After an incubation period of 2-4 days, the invading organisms elicit an acute inflammatory response with 3-5 days of sore throat, fever, malaise, headache, and an elevated leukocyte count.
In 0.3-3% of cases, infection leads to rheumatic fever several weeks after the sore throat has resolved. Only infections of the pharynx initiate or reactivate rheumatic fever. The organism spreads by direct contact with oral or respiratory secretions, and spread is enhanced by crowded living conditions. Patients remain infected for weeks after symptomatic resolution of pharyngitis and may serve as a reservoir for infecting others. Penicillin treatment shortens the clinical course of streptococcal pharyngitis and, more importantly, is effective in decreasing the incidence of major sequelae.
Group A Streptococcus is a gram-positive coccus that frequently colonizes the skin and oropharynx. This organism may cause suppurative disease, such as pharyngitis, impetigo, cellulitis, myositis, pneumonia, and puerperal sepsis. It also may be associated with nonsuppurative disease, such as rheumatic fever and acute poststreptococcal glomerulonephritis. Group A streptococci elaborate the cytolytic toxins streptolysins S and O. Of these, streptolysin O induces persistently high antibody titers that provide a useful marker of group A streptococcal infection and its nonsuppurative complications.
Group A Streptococcus, as identified using the Lancefield classification, has a group A carbohydrate antigen in the cell wall that is composed of a branched polymer of L- rhamnose and N- acetyl-D-glucosamine in a 2:1 ratio.
Group A streptococci may be subserotyped by surface proteins on the cell wall of the organism. The presence of the M protein is the most important virulence factor for group A streptococcal infection in humans.
More than 120 M protein serotypes or M protein genotypes have been identified[2] , some of which have a long terminal antigenic domain (ie, epitopes) similar to antigens in various components of the human heart.
Rheumatogenic strains are often encapsulated mucoid strains, rich in M proteins, and resistant to phagocytosis. These strains are strongly immunogenic, and anti-M antibodies against the streptococcal infection may cross-react with components of heart tissue (ie, sarcolemmal membranes, valve glycoproteins). Currently, emm typing is felt to be more discriminating than M typing.[2]
Acute rheumatic heart disease often produces a pancarditis characterized by endocarditis, myocarditis, and pericarditis. Endocarditis is manifested as valve insufficiency. The mitral valve is most commonly and severely affected (65-70% of patients), and the aortic valve is second in frequency (25%). The tricuspid valve is deformed in only 10% of patients and is almost always associated with mitral and aortic lesions. The pulmonary valve is rarely affected. Severe valve insufficiency during the acute phase may result in congestive heart failure and even death (1% of patients). Whether myocardial dysfunction during acute rheumatic fever is primarily related to myocarditis or is secondary to congestive heart failure from severe valve insufficiency is not known. Pericarditis, when present, rarely affects cardiac function or results in constrictive pericarditis.
Chronic manifestations due to residual and progressive valve deformity occur in 9-39% of adults with previous rheumatic heart disease. Fusion of the valve apparatus resulting in stenosis or a combination of stenosis and insufficiency develops 2-10 years after an episode of acute rheumatic fever, and recurrent episodes may cause progressive damage to the valves. Fusion occurs at the level of the valve commissures, cusps, chordal attachments, or any combination of these. Rheumatic heart disease is responsible for 99% of mitral valve stenosis in adults in the United States. Associated atrial fibrillation or left atrial thrombus formation from chronic mitral valve involvement and atrial enlargement may be observed.
Epidemiology
Frequency
United States
At this time, rheumatic fever is uncommon among children in the United States. Incidence of rheumatic fever and rheumatic heart disease has decreased in the United States and other industrialized countries in the past 80 years. Prevalence of rheumatic heart disease in the United States now is less than 0.05 per 1000 population, with rare regional outbreaks reported in Tennessee in the 1960s and in Utah, Ohio, and Pennsylvania in the 1980s. In the early 1900s, incidence was reportedly 5-10 cases per 1000 population. Decreased incidence of rheumatic fever has been attributed to the introduction of penicillin or a change in the virulence of the Streptococcus.
International
In contrast to trends in the United States, the incidence of rheumatic fever and rheumatic heart disease has not decreased in developing countries. Retrospective studies reveal developing countries to have the highest figures for cardiac involvement and recurrence rates of rheumatic fever. Estimations worldwide are that at least 15.6 million children and young adults have rheumatic heart disease, and 233,000 patients die from this disease each year.[3]
A study of school children in Cambodia and Mozambique with rheumatic fever showed that rheumatic heart disease prevalence when echocardiography is used for screening is 10 fold greater compared with the prevalence when clinical examination alone is performed.[4]
Mortality/Morbidity
Rheumatic heart disease is the major cause of morbidity from rheumatic fever and the major cause of mitral insufficiency and stenosis in the United States and the world. Variables that correlate with severity of valve disease include the number of previous attacks of rheumatic fever, the length of time between the onset of disease and start of therapy, and sex. (The disease is more severe in females than in males.) Insufficiency from acute rheumatic valve disease resolves in 60-80% of patients who adhere to antibiotic prophylaxis.
Race
Native Hawaiian and Maori (both of Polynesian descent) have a higher incidence of rheumatic fever (13.4 per 100,000 hospitalized children per year), even with antibiotic prophylaxis of streptococcal pharyngitis. Otherwise, race (when controlled for socioeconomic variables) has not been documented to influence disease incidence.
Sex
Rheumatic fever occurs in equal numbers in males and females, but the prognosis is worse for females than for males.
Age
Rheumatic fever is principally a disease of childhood, with a median age of 10 years, although it also occurs in adults (20% of cases).
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