Andrea Beaton, MD, Associate Professor, Cardiology

Beaton and her colleagues from around the globe published a paper this past year in the New England Journal of Medicine, detailing their study in Uganda to determine if early detection and initiation of antibiotic prophylaxis could improve outcomes for children with the earliest forms of rheumatic heart disease. Sub-Saharan Africa has some of the highest rates of rheumatic heart disease, which affects over 40 million people globally. This is the first trial on a large-scale clinical trial to show that early detection coupled with prophylactic treatment with penicillin is highly effective in preventing progression of this disease. Beaton and her colleagues also procured a prestigious Leducq Foundation International Network grant this year, providing $8 million to continue these and other global efforts aimed at reducing the global burden of this preventable heart disease of childhood.