BACKGROUND Rheumatic heart disease (RHD) is a major contributor to morbidity and premature death in poor and developing countries like India. RHD predominantly affects young and working age group. Objective-To evaluate relative frequency of the various cardiac valvular lesions in Rheumatic heart disease (RHD) in patients who underwent Echocardiogram in the . The reports were retrieved from computerised database and demographic features like age, sex, type of valvular lesion were analysed.

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... S Out of 17,625 patients who underwent echocardiogram in the Department of Cardiology, 428 patients (2.4 %) were diagnosed with rheumatic heart disease. The commonly affected age group was 21 to 40 years. The distribution being 120 males (28%), 288 females (67.2%) and 20 children (4.6%). Mitral Regurgitation was the predominant valvular lesion affecting 328 (76.6%) patients with female preponderance of 239 (72.8%) patients. The second most common valvular lesion was Mitral Stenosis. It was diagnosed in 287 patients constituting 67.05%. The incidence was most common in females (205 cases, 71%) when compared to males (82 cases 29%). Of those 287 patients, 139 (48.4%) patients had severe MS and 92 (32.0%) had moderate MS. Aortic Regurgitation (AR) was present in 126 (29.4%) patients and almost always (99 %) in combination. Mixed valvular lesions (MS with MR) were present in 117 (27.3%) of patients. The least common lesion was Aortic stenosis (AS) noted in 24 (5.6%) patients. Out of 118 patients with multivalvular lesions, MS with MR with AR were found in 65 (55.08%) patients. CONCLUSION The most common valvular lesion reported in our study was multivalvular lesion. The predominant pure lesion was Mitral regurgitation followed by Mitral stenosis, Aortic regurgitation and MS with MR.