Rheumatic fever echocardiography or ultrasound

Overview
Echocardiography may be helpful in establishing carditis and in monitoring the progress of valve defect.

Echocardiography
Echocardiography helps in establishing the diagnosis of carditis. Valvular involvement resulting in stenosis or regurgitation of mitral valve and/or aortic valve can be detected by echocardiogram more accurately than by cardiac auscultation along with quantifying the degree of insufficiency and ventricular dysfunction. Studies relying on echocardiography in the diagnosis of rheumatic heart disease have demonstrated that the rates of subclinical carditis is up to 10 times higher than that diagnosed clinical examination

To diagnose mitral valve prolapse, the following criteria should be fulfilled - Movement of any part of either leaflet more than 2mm behind the annular plane in parasternal long axis view and movement of point of co-aptation behind the annular plane in apical 4 chamber view. Mitral regurgitation can result in left atrial enlargement.

In patients with chronic rheumatic heart disease, echocardiogram helps in tracking the progression of valve stenosis and thus may help in determining the time for surgical intervention. Increased echodensity of the mitral valve may signify calcification.