Prevalence of rheumatic heart disease in North-Central Nigeria: a school-based cross-sectional pilot study.
Nkereuwem, Esin;
Ige, Olukemi O;
Yilgwan, Christopher;
Jobe, Modou;
Erhart, Annette;
Bode-Thomas, Fidelia;
(2020)
Prevalence of rheumatic heart disease in North-Central Nigeria: a school-based cross-sectional pilot study.
Tropical Medicine and International Health, 25 (11).
pp. 1408-1415.
ISSN 1360-2276
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/tmi.13477
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OBJECTIVES: To present epidemiological data on rheumatic heart disease (RHD), the most common acquired heart disease in children and young adults in low- and middle-income countries, for North-Central Nigeria. METHODS: In this pilot study, we conducted clinical and echocardiography screening on a cross section of randomly selected secondary schoolchildren in Jos, North-Central Nigeria, from March to September 2016. For outcome classification into borderline or definite RHD, we performed a confirmatory echocardiography using the World Heart Federation criteria for those suspected to have RHD from the screening. RESULTS: A total of 417 secondary schoolchildren were screened, of whom 247 (59.2%) were female. The median age was 14 years (IQR: 13-15). Clinical screening detected 8/417 children, whereas screening echocardiography detected 42/417 suspected cases of RHD. Definitive echocardiography confirmed 9/417 with RHD corresponding to a prevalence of 21.6 per 1000 (95% CI, 6.7-36.5). All but one of the confirmed RHD cases (8/9) were borderline RHD corresponding to a prevalence of 19.2 per 1000 (95% CI, 8.3-37.5) for borderline RHD and 2.4 per 1000 (95% CI, 0.1-13.3) for definite RHD. RHD was more common in boys and cardiac auscultation missed over 50% of the cases. CONCLUSIONS: This study showed a high prevalence of RHD among secondary schoolchildren in North-Central Nigeria with a vast predominance of asymptomatic borderline lesions. Larger school-based echocardiography screening using portable or handheld echocardiography aimed at early detection of subclinical RHD should be adopted.
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Licence: Creative Commons: Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0