A Case Report of Acute Heart Failure Due to Infective Aortic Endocarditis Diagnosed by Point-of-care Ultrasound

Introduction: Infective endocarditis (IE) is a life-threatening condition with significant morbidity and mortality, and can require surgical repair.Case Report: A 36-year-old man presented to the emergency department for worsening dyspnea and chest pain. Point-of-care echocardiography demonstrated a mobile oscillating mass on the aortic valve with poor approximation of the valve leaflets, suggesting aortic valve insufficiency secondary to IE as the cause of acute heart failure. The patient underwent emergent aortic valve replacement within 24 hours.Discussion: While point-of-care echocardiography has been well documented in identifying tricuspid vegetations, aorticvalve involvement and subsequent heart failure is less well described. Earlier recognition of aortic valve vegetations and insufficiency can expedite surgical intervention, with decreased complication rates linked to earlier antimicrobial therapy.Conclusion: This case report highlights the ability of point-of-care ultrasound to identify aortic vegetations, allowing for the earlier diagnosis and therapy

Cerebrovascular complications and infective endocarditis. impact of available evidence on clinical outcome

Infective endocarditis (IE) is a life-threatening disease. Its epidemiological profile has substantially changed in recent years although 1-year mortality is still high. Despite advances in medical therapy and surgical technique, there is still uncertainty on the best management and on the timing of surgical intervention. The objective of this review is to produce further insight intothe short- and long-term outcomes of patients with IE, with a focus on those presenting cerebrovascular complications

Pressure relieving support surfaces (PRESSURE) trial : cost effectiveness analysis

Objective To assess tire cost effectiveness of alternating pressure mattresses compared with alternating pressure overlays for the prevention of pressure ulcers in patients admitted to hospital. Design Cost effectiveness analysis carried out alongside the pressure relieving support surfaces (PRESSURE) trial; a multicentre UK based pragmatic randomised controlled trial. Setting 11 hospitals in six UK NHS trusts. Participants Intention to treat population comprising 1971 participants. Main outcome measures Kaplan Meier estimates of restricted mean time to development of pressure ulcers and total costs for treatment in hospital. Results Alternating pressure mattresses were associated with lower overall costs (283.6 pound per patient on average, 95% confidence interval -377.59 pound to. 976.79) pound mainly due to reduced length of stay in hospital, and greater benefits (a delay in time to ulceration of 10.64 days on average, - 24.40 to 3.09). The differences in health benefits and total costs for hospital stay between alternating pressure mattresses and alternating pressure overlays were not statistically significant; however, a cost effectiveness acceptability curve indicated that on average alternating pressure mattresses compared with alternating pressure overlays were associated with air 80% probability of being cost saving. Conclusion Alternating pressure mattresses for the prevention of pressure ulcers are more likely to be cost effective and are more acceptable to patients than alternating pressure overlays

Septic emboli secondary to Infective Endocarditis

A 31 year old lady was brought to casualty by a friend, unconscious and incontinent of urine and faeces. She was responsive to verbal stimuli with a Glasgow Come Scale (GCS) of 10 and noted to have a fever of 39.6oC. She had a blood pressure (BP) of 116/65 mmHg and a pulse rate of 160 bpm. She was allegedly unresponsive for two days prior to admission. She is a known intravenous drug user (IVDU). Physical examination revealed bilateral puncture wounds in the groin. In view of her poor general condition she was admitted to the intensive therapy unit (ITU). She was started in empirical antibiotics which included both G+ and G- coverage. Blood culture eventually grew a methicillin sensitive staphylococcus areus (MSSA), and the antibiotics were eventually downgraded to flucloxacillin. A transoesophageal echocardiogram (TOE) showed a massive infective endocarditis of the mitral valve, which was rendered incompetent. An MRI scan of the brain revealed multiple septic emboli resulting in several cerebral infarcts.peer-reviewe

Triple valve infective endocarditis - a late diagnosis

Behcet\u27s disease is a systemic vasculitis of unknown aetiology with cardiac involvement as well as damage to other organs. Whether the sterile valvular inflammation which occurs in this autoimmune disease predisposes to bacterial adhesion and infective endocarditis is not yet established. We present the case of a patient with Behcet disease in which transthoracic echocardiography showed mobile masses on the aortic, tricuspid, and mitral valves, leading to multivalvular infective endocarditis diagnosis, possibly in the context of valvular inflammation. The case presented in this article confirms observation of other studies, namely that ultrasonography plays an important role in the diagnosis and evaluation of rheumatic diseases and permits optimal management in daily practice

An unusual case of disseminated intravascular coagulation

The use of cardiac pacemakers is increasing worldwide. Infective endocarditis from a pacemaker lead is a rare, but one of the most severe complications of pacemaker insertion. The diagnosis of pacemaker-related infective endocarditis is usually delayed due to unspecific clinical signs and symptoms at presentation compared to native valve infective endocarditis. Several factors can increase the risk of cardiac pacemaker-related infective endocarditis including cachexia, malignancy, diabetes mellitus, immunosuppression and corticosteroid treatment. This case report is about a 70-year-old diabetic male who presented to the emergency department with disseminated intravascular coagulation (DIC), cardiac and liver failure. He was diagnosed with pacemaker infective endocarditis, which was ultimately fatal

Service evaluation to establish the sensitivity, specificity and additional value of broad-range 16S rDNA PCR for the diagnosis of infective endocarditis from resected endocardial material in patients from eight UK and Ireland hospitals

Infective endocarditis (IE) can be diagnosed in the clinical microbiology laboratory by culturing explanted heart valve material. We present a service evaluation that examines the sensitivity and specificity of a broad-range 16S rDNA polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assay for the detection of the causative microbe in culture-proven and culture-negative cases of IE. A clinical case-note review was performed for 151 patients, from eight UK and Ireland hospitals, whose endocardial specimens were referred to the Microbiology Laboratory at Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) for broad-range 16S rDNA PCR over a 12-year period. PCR detects the causative microbe in 35/47 cases of culture-proven IE and provides an aetiological agent in 43/69 cases of culture-negative IE. The sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value (PPV) and negative predictive value (NPV) of the 16S rDNA PCR assay were calculated for this series of selected samples using the clinical diagnosis of IE as the reference standard. The values obtained are as follows: sensitivity = 67 %, specificity = 91 %, PPV = 96 % and NPV = 46 %. A wide range of organisms are detected by PCR, with Streptococcus spp. detected most frequently and a relatively large number of cases of Bartonella spp. and Tropheryma whipplei IE. PCR testing of explanted heart valves is recommended in addition to culture techniques to increase diagnostic yield. The data describing the aetiological agents in a large UK and Ireland series of culture-negative IE will allow future development of the diagnostic algorithm to include real-time PCR assays targeted at specific organisms

Optimizing Guideline-Recommended Antibiotic Doses for Pediatric Infective Endocarditis

The American Heart Association recently published an updated scientific statement on the management of infective endocarditis in childhood. The recommendations included for vancomycin, aminoglycoside, and β-lactam dosing and monitoring are based primarily on expert opinion and do not consider available evidence for dose optimization based on pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic principles in pediatric patients. This is concerning because even when clinically necessary, some practitioners may be hesitant to deviate from guideline-recommended doses. In this perspective, we highlight potential areas for improvement in the statement-recommended doses and summarize evidence supporting antibiotic dosing optimization. The addition of a pediatric clinical pharmacist with expertise in antibiotic dosing to the panel would be beneficial for future updates

Presence Of A Congenitally Bicuspid Aortic Valve Among Patients Having Combined Mitral And Aortic Valve Replacement

Although bicuspid aortic valve occurs in an estimated 1% of adults and mitral valve prolapse in an estimated 5% of adults, occurrence of the 2 in the same patient is infrequent. During examination of operatively excised aortic and mitral valves because of dysfunction (stenosis and/or regurgitation), we encountered 16 patients who had congenitally bicuspid aortic valves associated with various types of dysfunctioning mitral valves. Eleven of the 16 patients had aortic stenosis (AS): 5 of them also had mitral stenosis, of rheumatic origin in 4 and secondary to mitral annular calcium in 1; the other 6 with aortic stenosis had pure mitral regurgitation (MR) secondary to mitral valve prolapse in 3, to ischemia in 2, and to unclear origin in 1. Of the 5 patients with pure aortic regurgitation, each also had pure mitral regurgitation: in 1 secondary to mitral valve prolapse and in 4 secondary to infective endocarditis. In conclusion, various types of mitral dysfunction severe enough to warrant mitral valve replacement occur in patients with bicuspid aortic valves. A proper search for mitral valve dysfunction in patients with bicuspid aortic valves appears warranted. (C) 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. (Am J Cardiol 2012;109:263-271)Integrative Biolog