Correspondence to: Dr Rajdeep S Khattar, Manchester Heart Centre, Manchester Royal Infirmary, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9WL, UK; rskhattar@ hotmail.com _________________________ T ricuspid and pulmonary valve regurgitation usually occurs as a secondary phenomenon caused by dilatation of the valve ring secondary to right ventricular failure or pulmonary hypertension, respectively. Primary dise...

Background: Infective endocarditis occurs due to the presence of microorganisms in the endocardium or the heart valves. Nowadays, infective endocarditis is still a major cause of death with an incidence rate of 5 to 7.9 per 100,000 populations. The aim of the study was to determine antibiotic resistance pattern of bacterial agents isolated from blood culture of patients with infective endocardi...

from may 1994 to december 1996 thirty patients received viable fresh aortic homografts. mean age was 55 years (13 to 70), male to female ratio was 2/1, 24 operations were elective whereas 6 were semiurgent. predominant lesions were aortic stenosis or regurgitation in lb patients, aortic valve endocarditis in 10, prosthetic valve dysfunction in 3, and aortic root pathology in one patient. from t...

This report describes a pregnant lady in early trimester that was admitted with fever and left loin pain and was initially treated as presumed pyelonephritis. Subsequently she was found to have infective endocarditis with vegetation on the mitral valve. The course of her illness was complicated by acute pulmonary edema and septic embolization to the cerebellum. A decompressive craniectomy and r...

Several large series of cases of infective endocarditis have mentioned the paucity of pulmonic valve involvement. 1-3 A recent study by Hubbell et a14 found no cases of pulmonic valve endocarditis in a group of 79 drug addicts with 97 separate episodes of infective endocarditis. It is possible that the paucity of such reports may be due in part to the difficulty of assessing the pulmonic valve....

The concomitant presence of abnormal connection from three aortic valsalva sinuses to cardiac chambers is a rare complication of native aortic Brucella endocarditis. This case report presents a 37-year-old Iranian female patient who had native aortic valve Brucella endocarditis complicated by periannular abscess formation and subsequent perforation to multi-cardiac chambers associated with cong...

INTRODUCTION AND OBJECTIVES The aim of this study was to describe the predictors of hospital mortality found in patients admitted for infective endocarditis (IE) to a cardiovascular surgery ward. Patients and method. Prospective study of 186 patients with IE treated in our hospital between 1992 and 2001. RESULTS One hundred fourteen patients (61.3%) had native valve endocarditis and 72 (38.7%...

Left ventricular (LV) to right atrial (RA) communication, also known as Gerbode defect, is very rare, usually congenital but sometimes also acquired. Cases of Gerbode defect have been reported after left valve surgery, usually valve replacement. We describe the first case of LV-RA communication following a tricuspid annuloplasty not combined to a left valve surgery. The case we report concerns ...

We discuss a unique case of a 52-year-old man with no history of intravenous drug use or dental procedures who presented with neck pain, 2 weeks of fevers, chills, night sweats, cough, and dyspnea found to have isolated pulmonic valve (PV) endocarditis. The patient did not have an associated murmur, which is commonly seen in right-sided infectious endocarditis. A transthoracic echocardiogram sh...