Aims/Objectives In the past, the diagnosis was often not made until postmortem examination. Several factors positively and negatively impact our ability to diagnose FE. Because of the rarity of IFE and the non-specific symptoms there is often a low index of suspicion for it. Blood cultures are less sensitive for fungi and commonly negative. However, the large vegetations that characterize this ...

a ruptured sinus of valsalva aneurysm rarely accompanies the aortic and tricuspid valve endocarditis. a 36-year-old woman presented with low-threshold dyspnea on exertion and fever. transthoracic and transesophageal echocardiography showed a ruptured noncoronary sinus of valsalva aneurysm with large vegetations on the tricuspid and aortic valves, resulting in moderately severe tricuspid regurgi...

Cross sectional echocardiography identified vegetations in 45 of 62 (73%) patients who had clinical evidence of active infective endocarditis. The sensitivity of this technique in diagnosing vegetations in infective endocarditis was 93% and the specificity 89%. The predictive value of a positive test was 96% and that of a negative test 80%. Vegetations were detected with a similar frequency on ...

The dysgonic fermenter-2 bacterium is a newly recognized fastidious gram-negative bacillus that causes bacteremia and sometimes endocarditis in immunocompromised persons after they are bitten by dogs. To develop an experimental model of this infection, we placed polyethylene catheters across the aortic valves of New Zealand white rabbits, which were inoculated intravenously the next day with dy...

The case reports of 186 intravenous drug abusers admitted over a three year period were studied. Nineteen had proven staphylococcal septicaemia. Echocardiography showed tricuspid vegetations in seven and aortic vegetations in two. Eighteen out of 19 had systolic murmurs, but only the two patients with aortic vegetations had diastolic murmurs. The chest x ray showed opacities in 10 patients (all...

Drugs that localize in valvular vegetations may be useful in the diagnosis and treatment of infective endocarditis. We therefore tested the hypothesis that parenterally injected hematoporphyrin derivative (HPD), which is concentrated in tumors and atherosclerotic plaques, localizes in the vegetations of experimental infective endocarditis. In 14 rabbits, various bacteria were given intra-arteri...

Mural vegetations in the course of infective endocarditis are very rare. We report the case of a patient with an extremely large right ventricular free wall vegetation. Establishing diagnosis in the presence of only mural vegetations on echocardiography scan without valve involvement in the inflammatory process was difficult. In a differential diagnosis, benign and malignant tumours, metastases...