The international team of researchers found that therapy with Penicillina significantly reduces the risk of rheumokarditis in children and adolescents. Dedicated to the new use of the popular antibiotic article of scientists was published in The New England Journal of Medicine.
arising after transferred acute rheumatic fever with rheumokarditis, or rheumatic heart disease, about 40.5 million people around the world are sick. Every year she carries out of life at least 306 thousand people. Until now, it has not been known whether antibiotics are able to effectively prevent the development of the disease.
818 children and adolescents from Uganda between the ages of five to 17 years of age took part in the Goal clinical study of GOAL. The study participants were divided into two groups. For two weeks, the benzylpenicillin benzylpenicillin injections were allowed for two years, the rest did not give anything. All participants in the study at its beginning and the end were echocardiography – an ultrasound option, which allows you to get a heart image with ultrasound waves.
Only three of the 399 participants in the experimental group – 0.8 percent – the echocardiogram showed complications of the rheumatic edge. At the same time, 33 people were observed from 400 participants in the control group of complications – 8.3 percent. Researchers recognize that two of those three people in the experimental group that have developed complications, serious side effects were observed from the use of penicillin, in particular, anaphylactic reaction.
“Results [Research] show that 13 children who were rendered to therapy for two years, one will succeed in preventing the development of the disease,” said one of the researchers, Researcher of the Children’s Research Institute of Merdoca (Australia) Daniel Engelmann. According to scientists, the results of the study indicate the critical role of programs for early detection in the treatment of rheumlockard – in most patients, the disease is detected at the last stages.