Penicillin has reduced the risk of rheumatic heart disease in children and adolescents 
rheumatic heart disease in children and adolescents. An article dedicated to the new use of the popular antibiotic was published in The New England Journal of Medicine.
Rheumatic heart disease, or rheumatic heart disease, which occurs after suffering acute rheumatic fever, affects about 40.5 million people worldwide. It kills at least 306,000 people every year. Until now, it was not known whether antibiotics can effectively prevent the development of the disease.
The GOAL clinical study enrolled 818 Ugandan children and adolescents aged five to 17 years who were latently diagnosed with rheumatic heart disease. The study participants were divided into two groups. One was given injections of benzathine benzylpenicillin every four weeks for two years, while the rest were given nothing. All participants in the study at the beginning and at the end underwent echocardiography – an ultrasound option that allows you to obtain images of the heart using ultrasound waves.
Only three out of 399 participants in the experimental group – 0.8 percent – echocardiogram showed complications of rheumatic heart disease. At the same time, out of 400 participants in the control group, complications were observed in 33 people – 8.3 percent. The researchers acknowledge that two of the three people in the experimental group who developed complications experienced serious side effects from penicillin use, in particular anaphylactic reaction.
“The results [of the study] show that 13 children who have been treated for two years, one will be able to prevent the development of the disease, “- said one of the researchers, a researcher at the Murdoch Children's Research Institute (Australia) Daniel Engelmann. According to scientists, the results of the study indicate the critical role of early detection programs in the treatment of rheumatic heart disease – in most patients, the disease is detected at the last stages.