Natural History
The natural history of mitral stenosis secondary to rheumatic fever (the most common cause) is an asymptomatic latent phase following the initial episode of rheumatic fever. This latent period lasts an average of 16.3 ± 5.2 years. Once symptoms of mitral stenosis begin to develop, progression to severe disability takes 9.2 ± 4.3 years.
In individuals who were offered mitral valve surgery but refused, survival with medical therapy alone was 44 ± 6% at 5 years, and 32 ± 8% at 10 years after they were offered correction.
Read more about this topic: Mitral Stenosis
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“Let us not underrate the value of a fact; it will one day flower in a truth. It is astonishing how few facts of importance are added in a century to the natural history of any animal. The natural history of man himself is still being gradually written.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Everything that is right or natural pleads for separation. The blood of the slain, the weeping voice of nature cries, ‘tis time to part.”
—Thomas Paine (1737–1809)
“All things are moral. That soul, which within us is a sentiment, outside of us is a law. We feel its inspiration; out there in history we can see its fatal strength.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)