What is Rheumatic Fever Caused By

Rheumatic fever

What is rheumatic fever?

Rheumatic fever or rheumatic fever (febris rheumatica) is an immunological reaction in the body that comes in the wake of a throat infection with group A beta-hemolytic streptococci. The disease involves a diffuse inflammatory disease of the joints, heart, blood vessels, central nervous system and skin. The predominant symptoms are arthritis, heart inflammation, nodules under the skin, rashes and Sydenham's Koreas.

Although the acute illness can cause significant morbidity and even death, it's long-term damage to heart valves that make up the great burden - rheumatic heart disease with damaged heart valves. This condition is due to the amount of damage from repeated episodes of acute rheumatic fever, although initial infection can sometimes lead directly to the rheumatic disease. In younger patients, mitral klaffs vikt the dominant cardiac damage, whereas mitral stenosis is increasingly the common condition with increasing age.