Cardiac surgery for infective endocarditis in patients with intravenous drug use

Infective endocarditis in intravenous drug users, evaluation of clinical and para-clinical presentation

Introduction: 60 percent of hospitalization causes of intravenous drug users are infection, of which 5 to 15 percent of them due to endocorditis. Infective endocorditis is a common infection among intravenous drug users and can cause high mortality and morbidity. This study was conducted to evaluate clinical and para-clinical presentations of drug users. Methods: In a descriptive study we...

Surgery for Infective Endocarditis

Indications for surgery for elderly patients with infective endocarditis.

Sir—In his review of infective endocarditis (IE) in elderly patients, Dhawan [1] proposed a list of 8 situations that he considers to be “accepted indications” for surgery for patients with IE. We agree that age must not be a factor in determining whether a patient should undergo valvular surgery. Some situations are considered to be de facto indications for valvular surgery for patients with I...

Infective endocarditis in an HIV-infected intravenous drug user.

Infective endocarditis is a common complication among injecting drug users. Disease risk among these patients is increased by the spread of HIV infection. In the following article, we discuss the exceptional clinical presentation of a 28-year-old patient who used intravenous drugs (heroin) for 10 years, had been infected with HIV for seven years and as a complication had developed Staphylococcu...

Rapidly progrediating aortic valve infective endocarditis in an intravenous drug user treated by antibiotics and surgery.

We report the case of a 22-year old male, a self-confessed recreational drug user who developed cardiogenic shock because of severe destruction of the aortic valve by rapidly progressive aortic valve endocarditis. The disease progression was acute; in a matter of days, the clinical manifestations were life-threatening necessitating urgent aortic valve replacement surgery. Cultivation revealed S...