[Streptococcus bovis infectious endocarditis: clinical and epidemiological characteristics].

This paper shows our experience concerning the study of Streptococcus bovis infectious endocarditis (EI): 47 patients, with no prior history of IV drug abuse (NTD), who suffered EI caused by Streptococcus bovis were excerpted from a case record of 1053 cases with diagnosis of EI defined in accordance with Duke's Hospital criteria. For each patient we considered age, sex, complications, echocardiographic findings, antibiotic therapy, eventual heart-surgery and final outcome of the disease. We then compared the parameters of our patients, with the ones of 216 NTD patients suffering non Streptococcus bovis EI, selected according to age correspondence and concomitant onset of the disease. The characteristics of Streptococcus bovis EI are analogous to the ones of EIs caused by other micro-organisms in NTD patients, except for a non statistically significant trend of higher frequency in old age and in males. Concerning possible predisposing conditions, we considered the association extensively described in the literature between Streptococcus bovis EI and gastroenteric pathology (above all colon neoplasms): this association was not frequently observed in our study because appropriate instrumental investigations of the digestive tract were carried out only in a minority of patients.