Diseases, Conditions, Syndromes

Microbiologists discover how cavity-causing microbes invade heart

(Medical Xpress) -- Scientists have discovered the tool that bacteria normally found in our mouths use to invade heart tissue, causing a dangerous and sometimes lethal infection of the heart known as endocarditis. The work ...

Cardiology

Bacterial endocarditis increases stroke risk for extended period

Patients who develop an infection of the heart valves called bacterial endocarditis have an elevated risk of stroke beginning four months before, and up to five months after diagnosis. This is a period significantly longer ...

Surgery

Early surgery ups outcomes in infective endocarditis

(HealthDay) -- For patients with infective endocarditis and large vegetations, early surgery reduces death from any cause and embolic events, compared with conventional treatment, according to a study published in the June ...

Cardiology

High burden of endocarditis in older adults

(HealthDay)—The 2007 American Heart Association guidelines recommending a restriction of antibiotic prophylaxis have not increased the rates of hospitalization or adjusted mortality for endocarditis among Medicare beneficiaries, ...

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Endocarditis is an inflammation of the inner layer of the heart, the endocardium. It usually involves the heart valves (native or prosthetic valves). Other structures that may be involved include the interventricular septum, the chordae tendineae, the mural endocardium, or even on intracardiac devices. Endocarditis is characterized by a prototypic lesion, the vegetation, which is a mass of platelets, fibrin, microcolonies of microorganisms, and scant inflammatory cells. In the subacute form of infective endocarditis, the vegetation may also include a center of granulomatous tissue, which may fibrose or calcify.

There are multiple ways to classify endocarditis. The simplest classification is based on etiology: either infective or non-infective, depending on whether a microorganism is the source of the inflammation or not. Regardless, diagnosis of endocarditis is based on the clinical features, investigations such as echocardiogram, as well as any blood cultures demonstrating the presence of endocarditis-causing microorganisms.

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