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Curr Trend Cardiol. 2017 | Volume 1 Issue 3
September 18-19, 2017 | Toronto, Canada
Annual Conference on
HEART DISEASES
Introduction:
Rheumatic heart disease (RHD) is a leading
cause of incapacity and premature death in Africa among
young population. RHD is acquired as a long term outcome
of acute rheumatic fever (ARF) that follows Group A
β-haemolytic streptococcal (GAS) infections. RHD appears
to have a faster and more malignant course among different
African populations.
Hypothesis:
Higher incidence and possibly severity of RHD
in the African population can be contributed to by genetic
factors. Detecting these factors may help in prevention and
management of the disease by detecting novel therapeutic
targets.
Objectives:
To identify genetics variants affecting
susceptibility to RHD To correlate the genetic risk factors to
the clinical phenotype and understand the heterogeneity of
the genetic factors in three African populations.
Methods:
In a prospective case-control study, 2000
participants will be recruited from three African countries:
Ethiopia, Egypt, and Mozambique. Cases group will include
400 patients diagnosed with RHD irrespective of age
limitation and 300 non-cardiac controls will be recruited from
the general population. DNA samples will be collected from
the participants to execute next generation sequencing, a
combination of whole genotyping array to their DNA samples,
targeting mainly polymorphism patterns of related genes,
e.g. IL1RA,αTGFβandTNFIL -10, and their pathophysiological
impact on immune response. High resolution analysis will
be applied to correlate the participant’s genetic features
and pre-existing clinical data’s as some studies have shown
a relation between the genetic variability and expected
outcome. The control group genetics and clinical history will
be compared to the cases result in order to understand the
real impact of newly discovered genetic patterns on immune
response and RHD disease progression. Finally, suggested
hypothesis will be justified based on conditional logistic
regressions.
Expected value of the study:
Several previous studies have
strongly suggested a relationship between genetic factors
and RHD A systematic review and meta-analysis of 435 twin
pairs from six independent studies was showed that ARF
high heritability, estimated at 60% across all the studies
(Engel et al., 2011). The RHD Gen network and molecular
epidemiology of streptococcus pyogenes (Bongani., 2016)
is currently conducting a project under H3 Africa to identify
genetic susceptibility & resistance to RHD. Another recent
study on RHD genetics across the pacific regions identify
a novel susceptibility signal in the immunoglobulin heavy
chain (IGH) is associated with a 1.4-fold increase in the risk
of RHD (Tom Parks et al.,2017). The current proposal aims to
extend these studies by providingmore data, specific to three
African populations, using state of the art Next generation
sequencing and collaborating with colleagues working in the
same field in an attempt to enhance efforts of fighting the
epidemics of RHD across the developing countries.
Speaker Biography
Helen Befekadu is medical doctor at Addis Ababa University Cardiac center Ethiopia.
She received doctor of medicine at the age 23 and specialized in pediatric and child
health and master of public health with great distinction from same university at
the age of 26years in 2015 enable to get the academic rank for assistant professor.
Following, currently she is attending a joint fellowship program in pediatric cardiac
intensive care and cardiology in Egypt, Magdi yacoub heart foundation since November
2016. Her international experience includes presenting posture in European society
of Cardiology 2016, Rheumatic heart disease conference in Cairo 2107, and Cardio
Alex conference in 2017. In addition to the clinical studies, she is highly dedicated
and passionate in research activities / evidence-based medicine particularly focus
to genetics of cardiovascular disease in general and in the process of application
for Rheumatic heart disease genetics PhD program after completion of joint clinical
fellowship studies.
e:
helbe6121@yahoo.comGenetic susceptibility to rheumatic heart disease in three African populations: Egypt, Ethiopia and
Mozambique
Helen Befekadu, Shehab Anwer, Anna Olga Mocumbi, `Yasmin Aguib
and
Magdi H. Yacoub
Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia