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Ling－yi Zhou^*，Kun Lu

Department of Cardiology. First Affiliated Hospital. Sun Yat－sen University of Medical Sciences. Guangzhou. China

Received 11 June 1996；accepted 15 October 1996

International Journal of Cardiology 58（1997）175－178

Introduction

　　Mitral valve prolapse（MVP）and aortic valve prolapse（AVP）have become recognized more frequently and their incidence rank first among the valvular diseases^[1]，which is most likely related to the widespread use of echocardiography. Based on our previous studies，the relative incidences of MVP and AVP increased gradually^[2，3]and their complications were common and sever. Prosthetic valve replacement was undertaken even in adolescents or children because of overt heart failure^[3]. This situation is different from that of the developed countries. Their data showed that symptoms only appeared at about 40years of age in patients with valve prolapse（VP）. This difference was probably due to the fact that their cases were primary VP，while in China rheumatic fever（RF）and rheumatic heart disease（RHD）are more frequent，which result in secondary VP，the so－called ‘postinflammatory VP’^[5]. In order to explore the relationship between RF and VP，retrospective and prospective studies were done in patients suffering from RF with acute rheumatic carditis（ARC）.