Survival patterns of children with rheumatic heart disease

We examined the survival curves of patients with established rheumatic heart disease treated at the Division of Cardiology, Department of Child Health, Faculty of Medicine University of Indonesia Cipto Mangunkusumo Hospital, Jakarta during the period of January 1983 until December 1992. There were 359patients available for analysis. At the end of the 120-month observation, 69.1% patients were still alive. Comparisons of several curves based on certain characteristics showed that age at the time of diagnosis and the number of valves involved were associated with survival, while sex, parental education, or nutritional status were not. Closer examination of 177patients who had completed 5 years of follow-up, both using univariate and multivariate analyses (logistic regression analysis) confirmed the results of survival analyses. We conclude that age at the time of diagnosis and the number of valvar involvement are strong determinants for the prognosis of children with rheumatic heart disease.