By Marie Rosenthal
The American Heart Association issued an advisory concerning the use of injectable benzathine penicillin G (BPG) to treat severe cases of rheumatic heart disease (RHD), and recommended oral dosing instead.
A growing body of evidence indicates that some people thought to have had anaphylaxis to injectable penicillin—the standard treatment for RHD—may have experienced a cardiac reaction to the medication, the advisory said (J Am Heart Assoc 2022 Jan 20.