Ineffective endocarditis can be DEADLY for an elder ---- a lucky case in Yunlin, Taiwan

A lucky woman escaped from infective endocarditis

photo by 華人健康網

Infective Endocarditis

Infective endocarditis is a furious infective heart disease. The mortality rate is very high of  IE. A 67 years old female, living in Yunlin, Taiwan started with fever and sore muscles, diagnosed flu at the beginning, developing to coma in one week, becoming critical condition at the end.

Infective endocarditis means inflammation of endocardium, inner tissue of heart, the most common target tissue is its valves. Bacteria is the most common reason of infective sources. When the involved valves can't receive blood , then immune system can't reach valves directly by bloodstream. If the pathogen reaches the valves and forms vegetation, the host immune response would be blunted. Deduction of blood supply of valve causes difficulty of drugs to reach infected valves as well. 

Lucky senior citizen in Yunlin ,Taiwan

When she arrived ER unconscious, found her mitral valve damaged by pathogens severely and huge vegetation on mitral valve. The vegetation was involving almost half of mitral valve and peeling off to bloodstream, causing the possibility of bacteria. The vegetation might be circulated to brain blood vessels causing stroke or sudden death also. 

"The operative procedure was very tough!" her surgeon said. " Normally, endocardium showing up after cut open chest bone, then open it to see the inner heart to fix the problem .But in her situation,  I only saw yellowish inflammation tissue connected to the chest bone , had to clean all the yellowish tissue before the regular procedure. And inflammation made operation more difficult. " " I am glad I performed this surgery successfully!"

High risk of infective endocarditis

There are four valves , mitral, tricuspid, aortic and  pulmonary valve, in our heart. Mitral valve and aortic are the most common affected by infective endocarditis.  In general, IE can be treated by antibiotics, but if the vegetation is bigger than 1 cm, surgery would be needed.

The high risk population are elder people, patients with artificial valve implanted, abnormal heart anatomy, rheumatic heart disease or congenital heart disease.

Mei Yun , Yu

Clinical Instructor of  Fooyin University

Editor of  Med Trans News
Founder of TwMedSpa