Maria do Carmo Nunes, Sheila Klassen and Walderez Dutra on Rheumatic Heart Disease

So thank you, Elisa, very much for inviting us to be here.

It's really a pleasure to have this opportunity to discuss rheumatic heart disease, which is still a huge problem, especially in low income countries.

Yeah, so we were very excited about being able to put together this series with The Lancet because although rheumatic heart disease is a multifactorial disease that involves issues regarding epidemiology, economical issues as well, and social economical issues, and of course, immunology, these papers that describe these issues with rheumatic heart disease are typically published separately.

And by bringing together this series, we feel that we are filling up a gap to some extent because we provide a platform where the readers can come and read a little bit about each one of the issues that surround the development of rheumatic heart disease.

It's also important to mention that the people who wrote each particular paper are experts in the area.

So we have immunologists, pathologists, epidemiologists, cardiologists, specialists in valve disease.

So we really try to bring together the best experts in the area.

Having said that, we also would like to acknowledge the contributions that other people who are not authoring the series with us provided for the literature.

So there are also excellent groups that work in Brazil, outside of Brazil with rheumatic heart disease whose works, whose papers have been cited in the series that we really would like to thank for all their contributions.

One of the things about the series is that, as you know, a good friend and mentor of ours, Dr. Robert Levine, who really idealized the series with us to begin with, passed away recently.

And all together, we decided to dedicate this series to him.

And Carminha will say a few words about his contribution to rheumatic heart disease.

Yes, thank you, Elisa, for the invitation.

It's a great pleasure to be here.

And this series also has a very special meaning for us because it reflects much of Dr. Robert Levine's scientific legacy.

He developed a remarkable part of his career to advance our understanding of valvular heart disease, particularly the mechanism of mitral valve disease.

In rheumatoid heart disease, Dr. Levine always encourages us to look beyond the established heart valve disease to understand the mechanism, the underlying disease, the course of the disease, why some patients progress and the other patients don't, and how to identify those who ultimately will progress and should intervene before severe valvular disease happens and the patients die.

This vision was instrumental in bringing together investigators across disciplines and countries and became a cornerstone for the scientific foundation of the Prima Network.

We just dedicate this series.

For this reason, we dedicate all the papers that we wrote for this series to Dr. Robert Ledin, a mental oncology, a dear friend whose vision, scientific curiosity, and extraordinary mentorship profoundly shape our understanding of cardiovascular disease.

His legacy continues to inspire our work and our commitment to improve the lives of patients affected by human heart disease worldwide.

And for those of us who knew Dr. Levine and followed his excitement with the series, he read every single paper.

He really contributed to every single paper.

He was so excited about it.

So I really would like to thank you, Elisa, you know, on his behalf and by not having him physically here with us.