Acute Rheumatic Fever and Rheumatic Heart Disease.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, rheumatic fever is a systemic illness which affects   the connective tissues within arterioles which occurs after a period of an untreated strep throat infection. Generally, organisms of the Group A beta hemolytic streptococcus have notably been linked to causing this infection. These organisms induce the production of antibodies from the immune system which react with the glycogen of the heart muscles, arteries smooth muscle cells and myosin, a protein of the heart muscle cells (Carapetis et al., 2016). This induces the release of cytokines and destruction of tissues. Lesions may also develop in the heart valves and various heart layers resulting to different types of carditis. Continued inflammation causes damage to the heart valves which undergo fibrosis and scarring leading to either valve regurgitation or valve stenosis causing rheumatic heart disease in the long term (Carapetis et al., 2016).Acute Rheumatic Fever and Rheumatic Heart Disease