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Posts Tagged ‘bacterial vegetation’

What happens to the vegetation after successful treatment of infective edocarditis ?

Posted in Cardiology - Clinical, infective endocarditis, Infrequently asked questions in cardiology (iFAQs), tagged , , , , , , on August 19, 2012| Leave a Comment »

When do you call a infected heart as healed ?

Should the vegetation disappear to call it a cure ?

Vegetation’s rarely disappear following treatment . Very small vegetation may dissolve – 20% . Many times it regress in size .

Often  our aim should be  restricted  to sterilise the vegetation. This invariably happens in most of the patients who receive complete course of antibiotic. But healing and sterilizing is not enough in many vulnerable patients.If the vegetation is large the embolic risk is still there even with a healed vegetation.

So if there is a relatively large  (>1.5cm) vegetation it is always better to remove by surgery.

Interventional  techniques may   soon  allow  capturing these vegetation by basket catheters .When technology is there to retrieve small bits of a thrombus inside a coronary artery it should be possible to remove a large vegetation with temporary aortic filters in place.

Also read

https://drsvenkatesan.wordpress.com/2011/01/12/what-is-the-natural-history-of-infective-endocarditis-vegetation/

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What is the natural history of infective endocarditis vegetation ?

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on January 12, 2011| Leave a Comment »

What happens to vegetation following  successful therapy ?

  1. It regresses almost completely  and become sterile
  2. It regresses about 50 % volume   but continue to harbor  live  viable bacteria
  3. Gets sterile   but  does not regress ,
  4. Vegetation vanishes completely .Gets dissolved circulation as micro particles.
  5. Appears slightly bulky.

Answer.

Each of the above statement can be true in different patients  at  / different times.  However No  1, is generally the dominant theme.

  • Most of the small vegetations disappear fully.
  • Large vegetations (>2 cm) almost never disappear fully .
  • Fungal vegetation is notoriously known  for a long haul battle
  • Systemic embolism is an important mode of  vegetation clearance from heart.
  • Size of vegetation is an independent indication for surgery .
  • Combination of vegetation with super added layer of  thrombus is common.The thrombus lyses in due course , mimicking thrombus regression.
  • Paradoxically healed vegetations may appear dense in  2 D echocadiography ,which may be wrongly interpreted as a growing vegetation.
  • The risk of recurrent vegetation formation remains till the raw area is completely endothelised.Hence antibiotics are given up to 4-6 weeks.

Persistent  culture negativity may be a  good index  for  successful management . But a negative blood culture  does not in any – way imply  absence of vegetation.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?Db=pubmed&Cmd=Retrieve&list_uids=7985602&dopt=abstractplus

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