Healthcare-associated Endocarditis Research Articles

Bi-microbial Healthcare-Associate Endocarditis caused by Enterococcus faecalis and Burkholderia cepacia: A Case Report and literature review

: Infective Endocarditis (IE), a known complication of hemodialysis (HD), has recently been categorized as Healthcare-Associated Infective Endocarditis (HAIE). Single pathogen bacteremia is common, polymicrobial endocardial infection is rare in this cohort of the patients. We report a case of endocarditis caused by Enterococcus faecalis (E. faecalis) and Burkholderia cepacia (B. cepacia), a first ever reported combination of a usual and an unusual organism, respectively, in a patient on HD. Clinical presentation of the patient, its complicated course ,medical and surgical management ,along with microbial and echocardiographic findings is presented herein. The authors believe that presentation of this case of HAIE may benefit and contribute positively to cardiac science owing to the rare encounter of this organism as a pathogen in infective endocarditis and the difficulties in treating it.

Endocarditis and molecular imaging

Endocarditis and molecular imaging

Infective endocarditis at a hospital in Saudi Arabia: epidemiology, bacterial pathogens and outcome

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE:Data on infective endocarditis prevalence, epidemiology and etiology from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf region are sparse. We undertook this study to describe the pattern and the causative agents of endocarditis at a hospital in Saudi Arabia.METHODS:We conducted a retrospective analysis of all reported endocarditis cases at the Dhahran Health Center from January 1995 to December 2008.RESULTS:Of the 83 cases of endocarditis, 54 (65%) were definite endocarditis and the remaining 29 (35%) were possible endocarditis based on the Duke criteria. Patients with definite endocarditis included 39 males and 15 females (ratio of 2.6:1) with a mean age (SD) of 59.7 (18.2) years. Of the definite endocarditis cases, native valve endocarditis occurred in 44 (81.5%) cases of and prosthetic valve endocarditis was observed in 10 (18.5%). The most commonly involved valves were mitral (n=24; 44.4%) and aortic (n=20; 39.2%). The most common organisms were S aureus (n=23; 42.6%), Enterococcus faecalis (n=12; 22.2%) and viridans streptococci (n=9; 16.7%). Surgical intervention was required in 17 (31.4%) cases and the in-hospital mortality rate was 29.4% (n=15). Of all the patients, 3 (5.5%) had embolic stroke as a complication.CONCLUSION:Native valve endocarditis is the predominant type of endocarditis. The patients were older adults and the most common organisms were S aureus, E faecalis and viridans streptococci.

Health Care-Associated Endocarditis Caused by Staphylococcus aureus with Reduced Susceptibility to Vancomycin

Infective endocarditis (IE) caused by methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus with reduced vancomycin susceptibility (SARV) has been reported worldwide. We report the successful treatment of a pediatric patient with SARV IE and characterization of the infecting strain. The MIC of vancomycin rose from 1.5 to 2 microg/ml, and the SARV was confirmed by population analysis.