Healthcare-associated infective endocarditis: a case series in a referral hospital from 2006 to 2011.

Background: Healthcare-associated infective endocarditis (HCA-IE), a severe complication of medical care, shows a growing incidence in literature.

Objective: To evaluate epidemiology, etiology, risk factors for acquisition, complications, surgical treatment, and outcome of HCA-IE.

Methods: Observational prospective case series study (2006-2011) in a public hospital in Rio de Janeiro.

Adult rhabdomyoma of the larynx.

Introduction Rhabdomyoma is a rare benign tumor derived from skeletal muscles. Laryngeal rhabdomyomas are even rarer, with only approximately 40 reported cases in world literature. Laryngeal rhabdomyomas usually are seen as masses covered by mucosa.

Bartonella and Coxiella infective endocarditis in Brazil: molecular evidence from excised valves from a cardiac surgery referral center in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 1998 to 2009.

PCR was used to detect Coxiella burnetii and Bartonella spp in heart valves obtained during the period 1998-2009 from patients operated on for blood culture-negative endocarditis in a cardiac surgery hospital in Brazil. Of the 51 valves tested, 10 were PCR-positive; two were positive for Bartonella and one for C. burnetii.

Cardiac angiosarcoma.

Despite cardiac metastases are found in about 20% of cancer deaths, the presence of primary cardiac tumors is rare. Most primary tumors are benign, and malignant tumors comprise about 15%. We report a 21-year-old man with fever, dyspnea, and hemoptysis that was diagnosed with angiosarcoma of the right atrium and pulmonary metastasis.

Improvement in left ventricular dysfunction after surgical correction of mitral regurgitation.

Objective: To evaluate whether left ventricular end-systolic (ESD) diameters < or = 51mm in patients (pt) with severe chronic mitral regurgitation (MR) are predictors of a poor prognosis after mitral valve surgery (MVS).

Methods: Eleven pt (aged 36 +/- 13 years) were studied in the preoperative period (pre), median of 36 days; in the early postoperative period (post1), median of 9 days; and in the late postoperative period (post2), mean of 38.5 +/- 37.