Infectious native aortic aneurysm with negative blood cultures: do not forget the pneumococcal urinary antigen test!

Infectious native aortic aneurysm (INAA) are rare but life-threatening infections. Early microbiological identification is crucial to initiate adequate therapy and decrease the peri-operative risk, but can be challenging when blood cultures remain negative. We describe two cases of pneumococcal INAA with negative blood cultures, diagnosed in the with the pneumococcal urinary antigen test.

Poor Predictive Value of Isolated Adventitial and Periadventitial Infiltrates in Temporal Artery Biopsies for Diagnosis of Giant Cell Arteritis.

Objective: We investigated the diagnostic value of inflammation limited to the adventitia (ILA), and isolated vasa vasorum or small-vessel vasculitis (VVV, SVV) in temporal artery biopsies (TAB) for giant cell arteritis (GCA).

Methods: Two pathologists reviewed consecutive first TAB. Using the clinical diagnoses as the gold standard, positive predictive values (PPV) were calculated.