Failure of clinical features of low probability endocarditis. The early echo remains essential.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate if earlier reported retrospectively derived criteria for predicting absence of infective endocarditis (IE) on transthoracic echocardiography could be prospectively confirmed or improved with transoesophageal echocardiography (TOE). DESIGN: Prospective analysis of the relationship between predefined clinical IE features and findings on TOE in 708 IE suspected patients. RESULTS: The previously reported criteria were rejected as 1/10 of our confirmed IE patients fulfilled criteria for predicting absence of IE. However, our study generated another model of low probability of IE: This disease was absent in 99.4% of patients with negative blood cultures and absence of vascular phenomena and predisposing cardiac conditions. Such patients accounted for 25% of our population of patients suspected of IE. CONCLUSIONS: The utility of earlier reported clinical criteria for predicting absence of IE proved insufficient. Instead the study generated new simpler criteria of low probability of IE. However, these included negative blood cultures, but echocardiography must not be postponed while awaiting the results of blood cultures. Therefore the proposed new criteria only apply to patients with documented negative blood cultures when the suspicion of IE arises, in our study only 10% of the population. Accordingly, the study documented the essential role of early echocardiography in suspected IE.

Successful management of invasive aspergillosis presenting as pericarditis in an adult patient with chronic granulomatous disease.

Invasive aspergillosis (IA) is a major cause of death among patients with chronic granulomatous disease (CGD). Few cases of cardiac aspergillosis have been published on CGD patients. Diagnosis of IA in CGD patients can be hampered by lack of characteristic symptoms and clinical signs and the serum galactomannan assay is often negative. We report the first CGD patient with IA presenting as pericarditis where combined antifungal therapy resulted in a successful outcome.

Procalcitonin in 759 patients clinically suspected of infective endocarditis.

BACKGROUND: diagnostic delay contributes to high morbidity and mortality in infective endocarditis. A readily available diagnostic marker of infective endocarditis is desirable. S-procalcitonin has been proposed as a candidate, but data on its yield are conflicting. We tested its diagnostic value in a large population of patients seen in a tertiary center. METHODS: this prospective study included 759 consecutive patients referred for echocardiographic examination on clinical suspicion of infective endocarditis. Transthoracic echocardiography was followed by immediate transesophageal examination, and a blood sample was obtained for procalcitonin analysis. Infective endocarditis was diagnosed by an interdisciplinary team and confirmed according to the Duke criteria. The team was unaware of the results of procalcitonin analyses. RESULTS: infective endocarditis was present in 147 patients (19%). Procalcitonin was higher in these patients than in those in whom infective endocarditis was rejected (median, 0.21 ng/mL vs. 0.13 ng/mL; P <.0005). Multivariate analysis identified significant independent determinants of high procalcitonin: blood culture with endocarditis-typical microorganisms (odds ratio [OR], 2.81), temperature ≥ 38°C (OR, 2.61), symptoms ≤ 5 days (OR, 2.39), immunocompromised status (OR, 1.74), and male gender (OR, 1.61). Tests at various procalcitonin thresholds yielded an acceptable sensitivity of 95% at 0.04 ng/mL, but specificity was only 14%. Only 12% had procalcitonin below this threshold, which might justify postponement of further examinations for infective endocarditis. CONCLUSIONS: procalcitonin was significantly higher in patients with infective endocarditis than in patients without infective endocarditis and bacteremia with endocarditis-typical organisms was the strongest independent determinant of high procalcitonin. The clinical importance of this is questionable, because a suitable procalcitonin threshold for diagnosing or excluding infective endocarditis was not established.

Infective endocarditis: a continuous challenge. The recent experience of a European tertiary center.

BACKGROUND AND AIM OF THE STUDY: The study aim was to monitor infective endocarditis (IE) before and after the condition was brought into focus in hospitals in the Aarhus region of Denmark. METHODS: A total of 172 patients with IE, all of whom had been referred to the regional tertiary center during 2000-2001 or during 2005-2006, was included prospectively into the study. RESULTS: Between 2000-1 (n = 51) and 2005-6 (n = 121), a very large (137%) increase occurred in the number of IE patients referred (p < 0.01). Yet, over this period, the delay from onset of symptoms to admission remained at one month, with a further prolongation of one week (p < 0.05) in 40% of patients who had received pre-hospital antibiotic treatment. A previous healthcare procedure was recorded in 37% of cases, with an ascending trend from 2000-1 to 2005-6. The increase in six-month mortality was high, from 16% to 26%, but was not statistically significant. Independent predictors were prosthetic valve IE (p = 0.02), advanced age (p = 0.03) and co-morbidity (p = 0.05); all three of these features increased over the five-year study interval. CONCLUSION: Although increased regional hospital attention to IE seemed to facilitate admission to the authors' center, this did not improve survival, apparently because of an unchanged admission delay and increasing age, comorbidity, and prosthetic valve IE. Delayed admission and health care-induced IE were susceptible to modification. Future measures should, therefore, be particularly focused on high-risk patients, on educating the general practitioners, and on improving access to primary healthcare facilities for blood culture and echocardiography.

Neisseria gonorrhoeae endocarditis confirmed by nucleic acid amplification assays performed on aortic valve tissue.

The Aptima Combo 2 assay is proposed as a rapid method of diagnosing Neisseria gonorrhoeae endocarditis or other suspected disseminated gonococcal disease.