Category: Endocarditis

One PET, Two PET – Endocarditis and Positron Emission Tomography

PETs. We all love them. I have two of those, if the pictures in my “about me” page are any indication as well as the main pic of this post. This post will not cover our beloved (and sometimes only) friends. No, we will be talking about positron emission tomography, an imaging modality we usually

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Daptomycin for Septic Pulmonary Emboli? Maybe

The hits keep coming and they don’t stop coming. I’ve had a bit of a lull lately, but am back to bring short, and hopefully, sweet post. Daptomycin has become a go-to antibiotic for MRSA infections, namely bacteremia, as organisms with resistance to vancomycin have risen in the past few years. The 2006 Fowler study

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Echo? Who, what, when, how? Role of echo modality in Staph aureus bacteremia.

I absolutely love this song. I tried to learn how to play it on guitar, but I think you may need 7 strings for it, at least when I checked back in the day. This week we are adding to last week’s topic and talking about when and what type of echo to get. There

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Infective Endocarditis: A Journey Through Definitions

At any rate, at approximately one-quarter to twelve that night, I remember distinctly getting up from my chair and from the table, where my books lay, and taking off my suit coat. No sooner had I removed the left arm of my coat, than there was on the ventral aspect of my left wrist a

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Query: A Journey from Ruminants to Heart Valves

Last post was all about dogs and their mouths. This time, is about cow placentas. At least to a certain extent. Coxiella burnetii is a gram negative organism that is known to cause a variety of diseases, however it is most commonly associated with culture-negative endocarditis. While it is generally a “wimpy” organism and not

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Adjunctive Rifampin in Staphylococcal Infections – Primer for Bacteremia and Endocarditis

The use of rifampin for staphylococcal infections is a bit controversial. The recommendation seems to be its use on infections involving prosthetic material, such as prosthetic valve endocarditis or prosthetic joint infections. For instance, the AHA infective endocarditis (1) guidelines recommends the addition of rifampin to a regimen consisting of vancomycin to infectious caused by

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How Trench Warfare Lead to the Discovery of Bartonella Quintana – Among Other Things

(While I do not anticipate this to alter the post, I should note that one name that has published several articles into B. quintana is Didier Raoult. If that name sounds familiar, he was the guy who published a large case series of patients with COVID-19 who were treated with HCQ and kickstarted the HCQ

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Candidal Endocarditis – Looking for Sasquash

Infective endocarditis is a rare enough disease in and of itself that many folks won’t see much of in their lifetimes, though the rise in IV drug abuse means this may not be the case in the future. Staphylococcus aureus and streptococci, as well as enterococci, tend to be the most common organisms associated with

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The Shift in the Treatment of Native Valve Enterococcal Endocarditis

A 72yo male with history of hypertension, kidney stones, and recent diagnosis of acute prostatitis presents with malaise and myalgias. According to the patient, he has been feeling unwell for the past month. He had a recent outpatient visit for dysuria, the UA was positive for leukocyte esterase. A DRE revealed acute prostatitis and he

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Enterococcal bacteremia and the risk of infective endocarditis – No Go

Enterococcal infections and bacteremia incidence have been increasing over the past decades, with enterococcal endocarditis representing 10% of all cases of infective endocarditis (1). This makes it the third most common organism implicated in IE, after Staphylococcus and streptococcus, and it is more prevalent in patients who are not drug abusers. Enterococcal bacteremia by itself

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