ReviewAnnals of pediatric cardiology
Rheumatic heart disease screening: Current concepts and challenges.
Review in Annals of pediatric cardiology. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 29 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
29 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 61 citations in OpenAlex.
- Predictors of rheumatic fever in sore throat patients: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene · 2022Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Prevalence and progression of rheumatic heart disease: a global systematic review and meta-analysis of population-based echocardiographic studies.Scientific reports · 2019Pooled it
- Chest auscultation - tradition and expectationsScandinavian journal of primary health care · 2026Review
- Clinical application of benzathine penicillin G as secondary prophylaxis and vaccines for patients with acute rheumatic fever and rheumatic heart disease: A comprehensive review.International journal of cardiology. Congenital heart disease · 2026Review
- Prevalence of Early Rheumatic Heart Disease Among Asymptomatic Students in Underserved Communities in Ethiopia: Cross-Sectional Observational Study.JMIR public health and surveillance · 2026Observational
- Machine learning for classification of advanced rheumatic heart disease using electrocardiogram in cardiology ward.BMC cardiovascular disorders · 2025Article
- Evaluation of Ficolin-3 deficiency as a risk factor in the development of rheumatic heart disease.BMC research notes · 2025Article
- Rheumatic heart disease burden from 1990 to 2021: an updated analysis based on the global burden of disease study 2021.Frontiers in public health · 2025Article
- Metabolic perturbations in cardiomyopathies: implications for early diagnosis and targeted interventions.Frontiers in cardiovascular medicine · 2025Review
- Agreement between Handheld and Standard Echocardiography for Diagnosis of Latent Rheumatic Heart Disease in Brazilian Schoolchildren from High-Prevalence Settings (Agreement between Screening and Standard Echo for RHD).Diagnostics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- The prevalence of rheumatic heart disease in Ethiopia: a systematic review and meta-analysis.Tropical diseases, travel medicine and vaccines · 2023Review
- The Impact of a Handheld Ultrasound Device in a Rheumatic Heart Disease Screening Program in Ethiopia.POCUS journal · 2023Article
- Comparison of approaches to determine echocardiographic outcomes for children with latent rheumatic heart disease.Open heart · 2022Article
- Echocardiographic Screening for Rheumatic Heart Disease in a Ugandan Orphanage: Feasibility and Outcomes.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Article
- An Untargeted LC-MS based approach for identification of altered metabolites in blood plasma of rheumatic heart disease patients.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Rheumatic Heart Disease Screening Based on Phonocardiogram.Sensors (Basel, Switzerland) · 2021Article
- Matrix metalloproteinase-9 in pediatric rheumatic heart disease with and without heart failure.Biomedical reports · 2021Article
- Rheumatic Heart Disease Patients' Adherence to Secondary Prophylaxis and Associated Factors at Hospitals in Jimma Zone, Southwest Ethiopia: A Multicenter Study.Patient preference and adherence · 2020Article
- Screening of asymptomatic rheumatic heart disease among refugee/migrant children and youths in Italy.Pediatric rheumatology online journal · 2019Observational
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Rheumatic heart disease (RHD) is a disease of poverty, is almost entirely preventable, and is the most common cardiovascular disease worldwide in those under 25 years. RHD is caused by acute rheumatic fever (ARF) which typically results in cumulative valvular lesions that may present clinically after a number of years of subclinical disease. Therapeutic interventions, therefore, typically focus on preventing subsequent ARF episodes (with penicillin prophylaxis). However, not all patients with ARF develop symptoms and not all symptomatic cases present to a physician or are correctly diagnosed. Therefore, if we hope to control ARF and RHD at the population level, we need a more reliable discriminator of subclinical disease. Recent studies have examined the utility of echocardiographic screening, which is far superior to auscultation at detecting RHD. However, there are many concerns surrounding this approach. Despite the introduction of the World Heart Federation diagnostic criteria in 2012, we still do not really know what constitutes the most subtle changes of RHD by echocardiography. This poses serious problems regarding whom to treat and what to do with the rest, both important decisions with widespread implications for already stretched health-care systems. In addition, issues ranging from improving the uptake of penicillin prophylaxis in ARF/RHD-positive patients, improving portable echocardiographic equipment, understanding the natural history of subclinical RHD and how it might respond to penicillin, and developing simplified diagnostic criteria that can be applied by nonexperts, all need to be effectively tackled before routine widespread screening for RHD can be endorsed.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.