Infective endocarditis (IE) is a life-threatening condition with high morbidity and mortality rates, making early diagnosis and intervention crucial. This report details the case of a 47-year-old male with a history of mechanical prosthetic aortic valve replacement, presenting with pyrexia and diagnosed with aortic bioprosthetic endocarditis leading to a massive aortic pseudoaneurysm. This shows that 3D transesophageal echocardiography is much more useful than regular 2D imaging for finding problems with IE, which makes surgical planning and intervention more precise.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInfective endocarditis (IE) diagnosis is based on a clinical suspicion supported by consistent microbiological and instrumental data. Evidence of involvement of cardiac valves (native or prosthetic) or prosthetic intracardiac material is a major diagnostic criterion of IE. Transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) is the initial technique of choice for the diagnosis while transesophageal echocardiography (TEE) is recommended in patients with an inconclusive or negative TTE, in patients with high suspicion of IE, as well as in patients with a positive TTE, in order to document local complications.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF(1) Background: Infections are among the most frequent and life-threatening complications of cardiovascular implantable electronic device (CIED) implantation. The aim of this study is to compare the outcome and safety of a single-procedure device extraction and contralateral implantation versus the standard-of-care (SoC) two-stage replacement for infected CIEDs. (2) Methods: We retrospectively included 66 patients with CIED infections who were treated at two Italian hospitals.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: Some abnormal electrocardiographic findings were independently associated with increased mortality in patients admitted for COVID-19; however, no studies have focussed on the prognosis impact of the interatrial block (IAB) in this clinical setting. The aim of our study was to assess the prevalence and clinical implications of IAB, both partial and advanced, in hospitalized COVID-19 patients.
Materials: We retrospectively evaluated 300 consecutive COVID-19 patients (63.
J Cardiovasc Echogr
January 2019
Infective endocarditis (IE) is a rare disease with a significant impact and an increasing mortality despite earlier diagnosis and surgical intervention. It is related to several and the main etiological agents are the Gram-positive cocci. The new guidelines propose new diagnostic criteria that consider the potentiality on integrated multimodality imaging.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Percutaneous mitral valve repair (PMVR) is a new option for high risk patients with functional mitral regurgitation (FMR) and severely depressed left ventricular (LV) function who are not responding to optimal medical therapy. However patients with end stage heart failure have a high mortality rate despite MitraClip implantation. We sought to identify right ventricular (RV) echocardiographic predictors of outcome in a large cohort of patients with severe FMR and advanced heart failure in order to select the most appropriate candidate who could benefit from this treatment.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: In aortic stenosis (AS), the combination of risk factors can progressively lead to an increased arterial rigidity, which can be evaluated by the carotid artery and aortic stiffness (β index). The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between carotid and aortic β index, left ventricular (LV) function, plasma brain natriuretic peptide (BNP) level, and symptoms in patients with AS.
Methods: Comprehensive echocardiography including Doppler tissue imaging of the mitral annulus was performed in 53 patients with AS (aortic valve area < 1.