Prevalence and progression of rheumatic heart disease: a global systematic review and meta-analysis of population-based echocardiographic studies

This systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to provide a contemporaneous estimate of the global burden of rheumatic heart disease (RHD) from echocardiographic population-based studies. We searched multiple databases between January 01, 1996 and October 17, 2017. Random-effect meta-analysis was used to pool data. We included 82 studies (1,090,792 participant) reporting data on the prevalence of RHD and 9 studies on the evolution of RHD lesions. The pooled prevalence of RHD was 26.1‰ (95%CI 19.2–33.1) and 11.3‰ (95%CI 7.2–16.2) for studies which used the World Heart Federation (WHF) and World Health Organization (WHO) criteria, respectively. The prevalence of RHD varied inversely with the level of a country’s income, was lower with the WHO criteria compared to the WHF criteria, and was lowest in South East Asia. Definite RHD progressed in 7.5% (95% CI 1.5–17.6) of the cases, while 60.7% (95% CI 42.4–77.5) of cases remained stable over the course of follow-up. The proportion of cases borderline RHD who progressed to definite RHD was 11.3% (95% CI 6.9–16.5). The prevalence of RHD across WHO regions remains high. The highest prevalence of RHD was noted among studies which used the WHF diagnostic criteria. Definite RHD tends to progress or remain stable over time.