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Rheumatic Heart Disease
What is it?
Rheumatic heart disease is caused by untreated strep infections. It starts as rheumatic fever. It happens in patients that are not treated or not fully treated with antibiotics for their throat infection.
Rheumatic fever can affect the heart, joints, skin and brain. Most often it affects the mitral and/or aortic valves, one of the doors in the heart that allows blood to pass between the chambers.
This is known as valvulitis. It also can affect the heart muscle, a condition known as myocarditis, or the outer membrane of the heart, a condition known as pericarditis.
Most of the time, rheumatic fever occurs in children five-to-15 years old.
How is it treated?
Once a child gets heart disease from a strep infection, they must remain on antibiotics for life to prevent recurrence that can further damage the heart valves.
If a valve is seriously damaged, surgery may be required to replace the valve.