Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UMLS:C0018801 (heart failure)
 72,216 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Sixteen cases of chronic Q fever are described. In eight there was a history of exposure to infection from farms or farm products. All had valvular heart disease, involving the mitral valve in nine and the aortic valve in seven. Infection occurred on a prosthetic valve in two patients. Arterial embolism was common. Venous thrombosis occured in three patients, and pulmonary embolism occurred in three other patients. Complement fixing antibodies to phase 1 antigen were found in a titre of 1:200 or greater in all except two patients. In one of these post-mortem examination revealed rickettsial bodies in mitral valve vegetations, and in the other Coxiella burneti was isolated from heart valve tissue. The majority presented with infective endocarditis but two presented primarily with liver disease. All patients had evidence of liver involvement and in one this led to death from cirrhosis. Abnormal tests of liver function, particularly hyperglobulinaemia, raised alkaline phsophatase and abnormal bromsulphthalein retention were found in all patients. Hepatic histology was abnormal in all eight patients in whom it was studied. The commonest features were mononuclear cell infiltration of the portal tracts and prominence of the sinusoidal Kupffer cells. Patchy focal necrosis of parenchymal cells, granulomata, fatty change, and eosinophilia of the sinusoidal walls were also noted in several patients and cirrhosis developed in one. Six patients had a purpuric rash, and in 12 there was thrombocytopenia. It is suggested that the presence of hepatomegaly and liver involvement and thrombocytopenia may help to differentiate Q fever endocarditis from bacterial endocarditis. Raised serum IgM and IgA levels occured frequently, but with only a moderate dominance of IgM. Sheep cell agglutination and latex fixation tests for rheumatoid factor were occasionally positive. Several features of the disease suggest the possibility that immune-complex mechanisms may play a role in chronic Q fever. Treatment was with prolonged courses of tetracycline usually combined with lincomycin. Seven patients underwent valve replacement surgery for haemodynamic reasons. Five patients died; two from heart failure, one from cirrhosis, one seven days after valve replacement and one from intraperitoneal haemorrhage following percutaneous liver biopsy. Three patients have survived for more than five years, and another six for more than three and a half years after diagnosis. Of these nine patients, three received medical therapy alone and six required valve replacement as well. Antibiotics have been discontinued in four patients who have had valve surgery and three others. Six patients had received antibiotics for continuous periods varying from 29-62 months. In the period after stopping therapy varying from 15-21 months, no relapse has occured. A seventh patient, who had received antibiotics for four months prior to valve replacement, has survived 43 months after the withdrawal of antibiotics...
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PMID:Chronic Q fever. 94 Sep 18

Endocarditis is the first manifestation of Q fever in its chronic form, generally affecting prosthetic cardiac valves or previously injured valves. Its clinical presentation is an endocarditis with negative culture and there is not agreement with regard to the most adequate antimicrobial treatment and its duration. Frequently, the valve has to be replaced. We present a case of a patient with double aortic lesion, in whom endocarditis by Q fever was diagnosed and treated with doxycycline, initially with success. However, she relapsed one year later, being then resistant to the medical treatment (doxycycline, ciprofloxacine plus rifampicine). It was not possible to replace the valve and the patient died two months later due to cardiac failure.
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PMID:[Q fever and endocarditis. Apropos a new case]. 148 70

Sera from 40 patients (25 men, and 15 women) with clinical features compatible with the diagnosis of chronic Q fever were received. Total or partial clinical data were available. All of them had serological evidence of chronic Q fever (IgG class anti-phase I titer greater than 800). The final diagnosis was vascular infection in four cases (with two positive cultures for Coxiella burnetii), bone infection in two patients (one positive culture), chronic hepatitis in one patient, and endocarditis in 32. The last patient had an isolated fever with a chronic Q fever serologic profile. Among the 32 with endocarditis, valve replacement was performed in 59%, and valve cultures were positive in 14/18 patients. Twenty-nine of these patients had previously known valvulopathy; 23 were exposed to cattle, sheep or goats; and four had an immunocompromised situation. Ten patients died; two before any treatment, five of cardiac failure during or a few weeks after surgery, and three during the medical treatment. For antibiotic treatment, tetracycline alone was employed in seven cases. For the other patients, combined therapy including tetracycline and another drug (rifampin, fluoroquinolones, cotrimoxazole, or erythromycin) was initiated. Three patients were considered to be completely cured.
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PMID:Chronic Q fever: diagnosis and follow-up. 237 73

A vast literary review on Q-rickettsial endocarditis is presented--spread, frequency, predilection, clinical course, laboratory findings, diagnosis, treatment, prognosis. The first case of Q-rickettsial endocarditis in Bulgaria is reported. The case was proved by the high titre of the specific antibodies while the patient was still alive and post mortem by visualizing the causative agent in the aortic valve and by its isolation through inoculation of material from the aortic valve. The infection was not influenced by high doses of penicillin, gentamycin and brulamycin but was suppressed by vibramycin in combination with lincomycin and biseptol. The lethal outcome was due to severe heart failure. It is suggested that other cases of Q-rickettsial endocarditis should be expected since Q-fever is widely spread in Bulgaria and the characteristics of the disease, its diagnosis and treatment ought to be well known.
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PMID:[Current status of the Q-rickettsial endocarditis problem and the 1st case reported in Bulgaria]. 332 86

Since the introduction of effective antimicrobial therapy, the leading cause of death in patients with infective endocarditis is no longer sepsis but, rather, congestive heart failure. The mortality is higher in patients with severe heart failure due to infective endocarditis who are treated with medical therapy only than in those who additionally undergo cardiac valve replacement. The mortality is also higher in patients with severe heart failure due to aortic infective endocarditis (40 to 93%) than in those with heart failure due to mitral infective endocarditis (17 to 66%). In patients with and in those without infective endocarditis, surgical intervention can be carried out with comparable mortality not only for aortic valve replacement (9 vs 8.4%) but also overall for valve replacement (10 vs 12%). In patients with class IV heart failure, overall mortality of valve replacement was higher (17%) than in patients with class II (8%) or class III heart failure (7%) and, similarly, comparable with that of matched groups of patients without infective endocarditis. In patients with class IV disability, the mortality of valve replacement was higher in those with active infective endocarditis (19%) than in those with inactive infective endocarditis, possibly due to a higher incidence of sudden onset of severe aortic regurgitation and myocardial abscess. No patient with valve replacement for inactive infective endocarditis developed prosthetic valve endocarditis; a single case of prosthetic valve endocarditis occurred in a patient with active infective endocarditis. In general, early surgical intervention is preferable to procrastination in the management of patients with progressive or severe heart failure due to infective endocarditis. Although, in at least 70% of patients, blood cultures may be rendered sterile within one week of initiation of appropriate antimicrobial therapy, patients with infective endocarditis due to staphylococci, multiply-resistant gram-negative bacilli, fungi, Q-fever or those with myocardial abscess or multiple relapses may require surgical intervention. While the overall incidence of clinically apparent emboli has been reported to be as high as 30%, in a ten-year observation period at the Mayo Clinic, the rate was 5.6%. Patients with echocardiographic evidence of large or mobile vegetations and those with infective endocarditis cause by microorganisms associated with a high risk of embolization such as slow-growing fastidious gram-negative bacilli, fungi (especially Aspergillus) and nutritionally-variant viridans streptococci should be considered candidates for surgery irrespective of a history of emboli.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)
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PMID:Cardiac valve replacement in patients with active infective endocarditis. 666 78

Ten male patients with a mean age of 57.5 years (range 27-75 years) underwent homograft aortic valve or root replacement for destructive aortic valve endocarditis. Six patients had native valve endocarditis (one with associated native mitral valve endocarditis) and four had prosthetic valve endocarditis (one with associated prosthetic mitral endocarditis). Causative organisms were Streptococci in six patients, Staphylococci in one, Q fever in one and no organisms were isolated in the remaining two patients. All the patients were operated while on antibiotics (mean lengths of treatment 13 days; range 2-42). The main indication for surgery was cardiogenic shock in five patients, progressive cardiac failure in four patients and uncontrolled sepsis in one patient. Operative procedures involved homograft aortic root replacement with coronary reimplantation (seven patients; associated prosthetic mitral valve replacement in one patient), infracoronary homograft aortic valve replacement (three patients) and a number of other procedures were performed to reconstruct the disrupted cardiac anatomy. Patients were followed up for a mean of 13.2 months (range 2-21). One patient died 4 months postoperatively of an unrelated cause; all the others are asymptomatic with no evidence of recurrent endocarditis. We conclude that homograft aortic valve or root replacement is an effective method of managing destructive aortic valve endocarditis.
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PMID:Homograft aortic valve and root replacement for severe destructive native or prosthetic endocarditis. 803 58

A 51-year-old woman, originating from Algeria, developed Q fever endocarditis on porcine bioprosthetic mitral valve. She had chronic course with nonspecific symptoms, such as dyspnea and fever, hepatosplenomegaly, and developed progressive cardiac failure. Worsening of hemodynamic state led to prosthetic valve replacement. Hemocultures were all negative, and the diagnosis of Q fever was unexpectedly performed by systematic screening for specific serum antibody to Coxiella burnetti. High phase I and II specific IgG and IgA antibody titers against C burnetii were found. The patient was treated by doxycycline and ofloxacin, and improved rapidly. Prosthetic valve constitutes likely predisposing factor for the development of chronic Q fever endocarditis. This observation emphasizes the need to search for Q fever in prosthetic valve dysfunction, in particular when hemocultures are negative.
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PMID:[Coxiella burnetii endocarditis on a bioprosthetic valve: review of the literature apropos of a case]. 819 Nov 3

A lethal case is reported of chronic Q-fever in a patient aged 34 who regarded himself as completely healthy six months before his death. The diagnosis was made on the basis of vital investigation of blood sera in a complement-fixation test and indirect fluorescent-antibody test (antibody titers 1 : 1280 against phase 1 and 1 : 320 against phase 2 Coxiella burnetii), differentiation of antibodies as distinct classes of immunoglobulins, results of pathoanatomical and microbiological investigations. Pathoanatomical features of the organs are fully detailed, especially those of the heart. Death occurred in the presence of cardiac failure growing progressively worse, involving many organs. Patients with cardiovascular pathology have to be examined for Q-fever in order that we should be able to early detect and apply specific therapy to treat its chronic form.
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PMID:[A fatal case of chronic Q fever with cardiovascular involvement]. 898 69

Myocarditis has only rarely been described as a manifestation of acute Q fever. Among our series of 1276 patients in whom acute Q fever was diagnosed during 1985--1999, myocarditis was diagnosed in 8. Two patients (25.0%) developed cardiac symptoms during the course of interstitial pneumonia, 2 (25.0%) initially presented with unexplained fever, and 1 (12.5%) presented with febrile cutaneous rash. In 3 patients, cardiac symptoms were inaugural: 1 patient experienced heart failure, and 2 experienced precordial pain. Dilated cardiomyopathy was documented in 7 patients, and 2 (1 of whom had undergone heart transplantation) died despite therapy. In addition, 1 patient was scheduled for heart transplantation because of cardiac insufficiency. When the patients in this study were compared with 32 control patients with acute Q fever, no specific epidemiological or clinical features were associated with this disease except worse prognosis (P=.006). Moreover, among the 12 patients from our series who died as a result of acute Q fever, 2 patients, who were significantly younger than the other 9 patients (P=.03), had myocarditis. Our study highlights the severity of Coxiella burnetii myocarditis.
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PMID:Myocarditis, a rare but severe manifestation of Q fever: report of 8 cases and review of the literature. 1131 45

We describe a case of Q-fever endocarditis with severe destruction of the aortic valve with perivalvular abscess formation and cardiac failure. The patient needed urgent operative treatment and postoperative critical care. All specimens sent for microbiological examination were negative. Molecular analysis, including fluorescence in situ hybridization of aortic valve tissue combined with PCR and sequencing, led to the correct diagnosis and to appropriate anti-infective treatment. The patient subsequently recovered from complex cardiovascular surgery. This is the first report on Q-fever endocarditis that was rapidly diagnosed using these methods.
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PMID:Rapid molecular diagnosis of infective aortic valve endocarditis caused by Coxiella burnetii. 2733 47


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