The in vivo efficacies of pefloxacin, a new fluoroquinolone, and amikacin-ceftazidime were compared in 50 rabbits with experimental aortic endocarditis caused by Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Animals were randomly chosen to receive 4 or 10 days of no therapy (controls), pefloxacin (40 mg/kg [body weight] per day, intramuscularly [i.m.]), or amikacin (30 or 80 mg/kg per day, i.m.)-ceftazidime (150 mg/...

Using a strain of Streptococcus sanguis tolerant to vancomycin to infect aortic vegetations in rats, we found that prophylactic intravenous vancomycin given 30 min before bacterial challenge decreased the incidence of endocarditis from 88 to 8% (P less than 10(-5)). Because peak vancomycin serum levels were below the minimal bactericidal concentration, mechanisms of protection other than bacter...

OBJECTIVES To evaluate the efficacy of oral linezolid, with or without rifampicin, on valve vegetations and secondary foci of infection compared with vancomycin, in the absence or presence of rifampicin, in experimental endocarditis caused by methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. METHODS Treatment groups were controls (n = 16), linezolid (n = 15), vancomycin (n = 15), linezolid and rif...

S ince Dillon and colleagues in 1973 described valvar vegetations by M mode echocardiography, the technique has assumed an increasingly important role in the assessment and management of endocarditis. The development of two dimensional and later transoesophageal echocardiography (TOE) has significantly improved the non-invasive detection of vegetations. Moreover, echoDoppler studies provide cli...

The correlation between antibiotic concentrations in serum, serum bactericidal activity, and results of therapy was studied in rabbits with streptococcal endocarditis. Five days of procaine penicillin G reduced bacterial titers to <10 per g in 12 of 14 vegetations in rabbits receiving 75,000 U intramuscularly every 6 h and 10 of 20 in rabbits given 37,500 U. Ten days of 18,750 U every 6 h did n...

We compared ciprofloxacin, rifampin, and gentamicin treatments, alone and in combination, for 5 days in the therapy of experimental aortic valve endocarditis in rats caused by a clinical isolate of vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus faecium. The MICs and MBCs of vancomycin, ciprofloxacin, rifampin, and gentamicin were 250 and > 1,000, 3.1 and 6.3, 0.098 and 1.6, and 12.5 and > 50 micrograms/ml, ...

Monocytes are important effector cells in the pathogenesis of bacterial endocarditis since they provide the tissue factor that activates the coagulation system and maintains established vegetations. Monocytes secrete cytokines that can modulate monocyte tissue factor activity (TFA), thereby affecting the formation and maintenance of vegetations. In this study, we show that monocytes cultured fo...

The activities of telavancin and vancomycin were compared in vitro and in the rabbit model of aortic valve endocarditis against a methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus strain, COL, and a vancomycin-intermediate S. aureus (VISA) strain, HIP 5836. Telavancin was bactericidal in time-kill studies at a concentration of 5 microg/ml against both COL and HIP5836. Vancomycin was bacteriostatic at...

Fifty-nine consecutive patients with definite Staphylococcus aureus infective endocarditis (IE) by the Duke criteria were prospectively identified at our hospital over a 3-year period. Twenty-seven (45.8%) of the 59 patients had hospital-acquired S. aureus bacteremia. The presumed source of infection was an intravascular device in 50.8% of patients. Transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) revealed...

Intermittent administration of ampicillin alone has resulted in high failure rates in previously described animal models of enterococcal endocarditis. We developed a rat model of enterococcal endocarditis which permits comparison of continuous intravenous infusion of ampicillin with intramuscular therapy. Continuous low-dose ampicillin infusion (450 mg/kg [body weight] per day) was compared wit...