Infective endocarditis remains an uncommon disease thus any individual doctor's experience of it must of necessity be limited. Such patients are always "interesting" and invariably stay in hospital for weeks rather than days-this, I think, leads clinicians to assume the infection is more common than it really is. As a (clinical) microbiologist I have been in a unique position to follow all pati...

The clinical and bacteriological findings in a case of infective endocarditis caused by Kingella denitrificans are presented. This appears to be only the second report providing clear evidence for a pathogenic role for this species.

The object of this report is to record our experience with six patients in whom urgent surgical measures becaniz necessary as a result of cardiac valve destruction following bacterial endocarditis. The patients constitute a group of six in a total of 200 valve replacements and have been distinguished from three patients in whom, as a result of bacterial endocarditis, valve replacement was under...

A DESCRIPTION IS GIVEN OF TWO METHODS OF MEASURING COMBINED ANTIBIOTIC BACTERICIDAL ACTION: a test in liquid medium with subculture and the cellophane transfer method. It is emphasized that information so obtained is necessary in order to predict the effect of combined treatment, particularly in bacterial endocarditis due to organisms not fully sensitive to penicillin. Eight case histories are ...

Accurate diagnosis of infective endocarditis may be difficult. The Beth Israel criteria and the newer Duke criteria assign probability to the diagnosis of infective endocarditis on the basis of the presence of common features and manifestations. We reviewed 111 cases of pediatric infective endocarditis diagnosed and treated over 19 years. Each case was classified by the two criteria, and the re...

BACKGROUND: In March 2008, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence recommended stopping antibiotic prophylaxis (AP) for those at risk of infective endocarditis (IE) undergoing dental procedures in the United Kingdom, citing a lack of evidence of efficacy and costeffectiveness. We have performed a new economic evaluation of AP on the basis of contemporary estimates of efficacy, adv...

Cross-sectional and M-mode echocardiograms were performed on 23 consecutive patients with infective endocarditis. Both M-mode and cross-sectional echocardiography identified vegetations in 18 patients, 10 of whom required valve replacement within 1 month of presentation. Cross-sectional echocardiography alone identified a vegetation in one patient with a prosthetic valve. Neither technique iden...

Staphylococcus epidermidis (SE) is the leading pathogen of prosthetic valve endocarditis. At the same time it is a very rare cause of native valve endocarditis and it follows a clinical course and outcome similar to Streptococcal viridans endocarditis. We report here the case of a 41-year-old man with a community acquired SE endocarditis of a native aortic valve. Despite early surgical interven...

We present the first documented case of Candida parapsilosis infective endocarditis in a pregnant patient. While the incidence of infective endocarditis during pregnancy is rare, the incidence of C. parapsilosis endocarditis is even rarer. The numerous specific risks and decision making processes regarding this case are presented.