Subclinical carditis in children with initial acute rheumatic fever: color-doppler echocardiographic study

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study was to determine the occurrence of subclinical carditis in patients with ARF who had no evidence of clinical carditis, using color-Doppler echocardiography [CDE]. Thirty four patients with initial attack of ARF have no clinical evidence of carditis and twenty age and sex matched healthy children [as a control group] were studied. From the results obtained it was concluded that ARF without clinical carditis is not always a benign condition, because it is accompanied in most cases by subclinical carditis. The increased MVLT and valvular regurgitation detected by CDE unmasked subclinical carditis. So, the use of CDE study in patient with ARF would improve the identification of subclinical carditis and thus may be of great value to determine the prognosis of ARF