Background: Rheumatic heart disease continues to be an important cardiac problem, afflicting the young population of India. Though prophylaxis and various treatment modalities are available for the valvar pathology, mortality and morbidity continue to be high. Autopsy data are scarce.
Methods and results: This is an autopsy analysis of rheumatic heart disease as seen at a large teaching hospital over a period of 5 years in the past decade. Four hundred thirty-four cases were autopsied in a five-year period from 1993 to 1997. The majority of cases were between 16 and 40 years of age. Fifty cases showed the presence of Aschoff bodies indicating a recent attack of rheumatic carditis. One hundred seventy-eight valves were examined in detail--in 174, the mitral valve was involved. In 4 cases, only the aortic valve was affected. The mitral valve showed significant disease with a severe degree of subvalvar pathology. One hundred thirty-eight patients had already undergone some form of previous surgery and presented with valve dysfunction. Most of these patients were in the third and fourth decades of life. The most frequent cause of death in operated and unoperated cases was congestive cardiac failure.
Conclusions: There is no decrease in the incidence or severity of rheumatic heart disease over a period of 25 years as seen at our institute. The pattern of the disease has changed, with patients who had a previous surgery now returning with valve dysfunction or related problems.