The Clinical Influence of Developing a Sustainable Cardiac Surgery Service to Reduce the Burden of Rheumatic Heart Disease in Sub-Saharan Africa

Our objectives are:

• To evaluate the 30- and 180-days outcome of cardiac surgery for rheumatic heart disease (RHD), and impact of gender, age, clinical findings and echocardiographic classification, during the time of development of cardiac surgery at Black Lion hospital, Ethiopia, in comparison with matched individuals (from the same waiting list) which had no offer of surgery due to limited availability.
• To evaluate the quality of anticoagulation therapy after cardiac surgery at Black Lion hospital, Ethiopia by evaluating the patients proportion of time in therapeutic INR-level, complications as valve dysfunction, bleeding and thrombosis compared to control patients undergoing valvular replacement due to RHD at Norwegian hospitals.

Population: Approximately 50 RHD patients operated by Our team at Addis Abeba University Hospital, Ethiopia.

Follow up for 180-days for objective 1 and continous follow-up for objective 2. Comparison With matched Controls. Outcome measures: Mortality, complications (heart failure, arrhythmias, thrombosis, bleedings, stroke, infections)

Inclusion criteria

• Cardiac surgery due to rheumatic heart disease at the governmental Black Lion University Hospital during the bi-directional programme of education, training and Research to establish Cardiac surgery service

Exclusion criteria

• Not willing or able to provide written informed consent