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)

A patient with enterococcal endocarditis of 11 months' duration is presented, and the role of surgery and echocardiography is reviewed. Echocardiography revealed vegetations of the aortic and mitral valves. After appropriate antibiotic therapy the patient had successful aortic and mitral valve replacement with porcine heterografts. Enterococcal endocarditis is increasing in frequency and is likely to infect young women of childbearing age, elderly men who have had genitourinary tract manipulation, and abusers of intravenous drugs. Aortic and mitral valves are most frequently affected, cardiac failure is common, and often no evidence of underlying heart disease can be found. The use of echocardiography in this patient provided accurate diagnosis of valvular vegetations and assessment of the hemodynamic severity of the lesion, thus preventing the need for cardiac catheterization and its potential risk of septic embolization.
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PMID:Multivalvular vegetations in a patient with enterococcal endocarditis diagnosed by echocardiography. 9 35

The role of aminoglycosides in the treatment of infective endocarditis is well established. The combination of a beta-lactam with an aminoglycoside shortens the treatment of endocarditis due to penicillin-sensitive streptococci (MIC < or = 0.1 micrograms/mL) when compared to beta-lactams alone. Patients at higher risk (e.g. with prosthetic valves, clinical duration of symptoms > 3 months) should be treated with penicillin for 4 weeks in combination with an aminoglycoside for 2 weeks. Once-daily dosing (ODD) of aminoglycosides can be recommended in penicillin-sensitive streptococcal endocarditis. The treatment of endocarditis due to streptococci relatively and/or highly resistant to penicillin requires combined treatment with penicillin plus an aminoglycoside for a longer duration. At present ODD of aminoglycosides cannot be recommended. Enterococcal endocarditis requires combined treatment for 4 to 6 weeks. Based upon experimental data, ODD of aminoglycosides appears to be markedly inferior to q 8 h dosing. Enterococcal isolates should be screened for high-level resistance to streptomycin and gentamicin. Gentamicin is the preferred agent if susceptibility testing is not performed. Aminoglycosides are administered during the initial 3 to 5 days of treatment for staphylococcal endocarditis on native valves in order to shorten the duration of bacteremia. For staphylococcal prosthetic valve endocarditis, aminoglycosides are administered for the initial 2 weeks of treatment. However, there are no reliable clinical data for methicillin-susceptible isolates to support this recommendation. In prosthetic valve endocarditis due to coagulase-negative staphylococci combination with an aminoglycoside appears to suppress the emergence of rifampin-resistant variants during treatment. There are no data on ODD of aminoglycosides in staphylococcal endocarditis. Right-sided staphylococcal endocarditis due to methicillin-susceptible staphylococci is adequately treated with a two-week course of a beta-lactam plus an aminoglycoside. This short regimen can be recommended for low risk patients, e.g. those without significant heart failure and vegetations < 2 cm3 and with an aminoglycoside-susceptible isolate.
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PMID:[Aminoglycosides in the treatment of infectious endocarditis]. 867 14