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(Circulation. 2008;118:2748-2753.)
© 2008 American Heart Association, Inc.

Heart Disease in Asia

Rheumatic Heart Disease in Asia

Jonathan R. Carapetis, MBBS, PhD, FRACP, FAFPHM

From the Menzies School of Health Research, Charles Darwin University, Darwin, Australia.

Correspondence to Jonathan Carapetis, Director, Menzies School of Health Research, PO Box 41096, Casuarina, Northern Territory 0811, Australia. E-mail jonathan.carapetis@menzies.edu.au

Key Words: rheumatic heart disease • Asia • burden of illness • epidemiology • echocardiography

An extract of the first 250 words of the full text is provided, because this article has no abstract.

	Introduction

 
A few years ago, my colleagues and I conducted a systematic review of data relating to the global burden of group A streptococcal diseases.^1,2 Population-based data on rheumatic heart disease prevalence from 1985 through 2002 were included. We estimated that there were a minimum of 15.6 million people in the world with rheumatic heart disease, with 282 000 new cases each year and 233 000 resultant deaths each year; however, we also noted that the estimates of the number of cases in school-aged children in China (176 500) and Asia Other (102 000; Asia excluding South-Central Asia and China) were based on very few studies, none of which used echocardiography to confirm the presence of rheumatic heart disease lesions. Moreover, 5 of the 6 studies included in the Asia Other estimate came from 1 country, the Philippines. We therefore urged caution in interpreting these data from Asia, other than South-Central Asia, and concluded that there was an urgent need for more population-based data from this part of the world. In the 5 years since that review was compiled, more data have emerged to clarify the burden of rheumatic heart disease in Asia, which will be summarized here.

Clinical Perspective p 2753

	Methods

 
The previous report included Medline searches and other searches to retrieve articles from 1980 to 2002 with population-based studies of rheumatic heart disease prevalence. To update these data for the present study, a Medline search was conducted with the terms rheumatic fever or rheumatic heart disease and Asia. . . . [Full Text of this Article]