Cardiac infections Flashcards
What is bacteremia?
The presence of bacteria in the blood stream
Blood is normally a sterile site. T of F?
True
What colour is a positive and negative blood culture bottle?
Blue is negative
Orange is positive
What happens to positive blood cultures?
Plated and grown in cluture
What is infective endocarditis?
Infection of endothilium of heart valves.
Can be acute or sub acute but usually classified by organism.
Why does infective endocarditis have a high mortality?
Diagnosed late 25% mortality
How frequently does infective endocarditis occur?
1 in 1000 hospital admissions (mostly over 50 yrs)
Hospital acquired cases increasing due to S aureus
What are the predisposing factors for infective endocarditis?
Heart valve abnormality (increases turbulence
- Calcification/sclerosis, congenital heat disease, post rheumatic fever
Prosthetic heart valve (biofilms on surface)
IV drug abusers (impurities cause turbulence, needle lickers)
IV lines (portal to the outside world)
What is the pathogenisis of infective endocarditis?
1) Heart valve damage and turbulent blood flow over epithilium
2) Platelets and fibrin deposited => inflammation
3) Bactereamis (maybe transient) organisms settle on fibrin/platelet thrombi => Microbial vegetation (different organisms= different growth factors
4) Infected vegitations can embolise causin haemorrhage or abscesses in distal sites
Where does infective endocarditis usually occur?
Left side of heart- aortic and mitral valves.
Except in PWID and then tricuspid is most common
What are the common causative organisms of infective endocarditis?
Staph aureus (38%) Gram + cocci clusters Strep Viridans (31%) Gram + cocci chains (alpha haemolysis) Enterococcus sp (8%) Staph epidermidis (6%) Gram + cocci clusters
What are the atypical organisms causing infective endocarditis?
Bartonella, Coxiella burnetti (q fever), Chlamydia, legionella, mycoplasma, brucella
Atypical organisms don’t culture well. How are they identified?
Serum antibodies
What are the gram negative organisms causing infective endocarditis?
HACEK organisms (Haemophylus, Aggregatibacter, Cardiobacterium, Eikenella, Kingella. Non HACEK gram negatives
What happens if you suspect a HACEK organism to be the cause?
Hold blood cultures for 7-14 days (normally just 5)
Can fungi cause infective endocarditis?
Yes- hard to culture
What are the major criteria for the modified dukes criteris?
1) 2 separate positive blood cultures with microorganisms typical for infective endocarditis (S. viridans, S. bovis, HACEK group, S. aureus, Community acquired enterococci)
2) Echo evidence of endocardial involvement. typical valvular legions: vegetation, abscess, new partial dehisence of a prosthetic valve
3) New valvular regurgitation
What are the minor criteria of the modified dukes criteria?
1) Predisposition: Heart condition or IV drug use
2) Temperature >38 degrees
3) Vascular phenomenon: arterial emboli, septic pulmonary infarcts, mycotic aneurysm, intercranial/conjunctival haemorrhage, janeway lesions
4) Immunological phenomena: Glomerulonephritis, Oslers nodes, Roth spots, Rheumatoid factor
5) Microbiological evidence: positive blood culture not meeting major criteria, or serological evidence of active infection with organism consistent with infective endocarditis
What are the investigations for infective endocarditis?
1) TTE: Transthroacic echocardiogram (if negative but high clinical suspicion continue to 2))
2) TOE: Transosophageal echocardiogram
- If negative but still unwell, repeat in 5-7 days
What is the most common coagulase negative Staph organism?
Staph epidermidis
Staph epidermidis is often a skin contaminant so where is it likely to infect?
Prosthetic material
IV lines, prosthetic heart valves and joints
What are diphtheriods?
Skin contaminants
Gram + bacilli
What are the presenting symptoms of acute infective endocarditis?
Overwhelming sepsis and cardiac failure
Usually aggressive virulent organism like S aureus