Background:
Rheumatic heart disease remains an important preventable cause of cardiovascular death and disability, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. We estimated global, regional, and national trends in rheumatic heart disease mortality and prevalence as part of the Global Burden of Disease 2015 Study.
Methods:
We systematically reviewed data on fatal and non-fatal rheumatic heart disease from 1990-2015. Two Global Burden of Disease analytic tools, the Cause of Death Ensemble model and DisMod-MR 2.1, were used to produce estimates of mortality rates and prevalence including estimates of uncertainty.
Results:
There were an estimated 319,400 (95% uncertainty interval 297,300 to 337,300) deaths due to rheumatic heart disease in 2015. The global age-standardized death rate due to rheumatic heart disease decreased by 47.8% (95% uncertainty interval 44.7% to 50.9%) from 1990 to 2015, but large differences were observed across regions. In 2015, the highest age-standardized rheumatic heart disease death and prevalence rates were observed in Oceania, South Asia, and Central Sub-Saharan Africa. In 2015, there were an estimated 33.4 million (95% uncertainty interval 29.7 million to 43.1 million) cases of rheumatic heart disease globally and an estimated 10.5 million (95% uncertainty interval 9.6 million to 11.5 million) disability-adjusted life-years due to rheumatic heart disease.
Conclusions:
We estimated global disease prevalence and mortality due to rheumatic heart disease over a 25-year period. The health-related burden of rheumatic heart disease has declined worldwide, but high rates of disease persist in some of the world’s poorest regions.