Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Day #299 - Enterococcal Prosthetic Valve Endocarditis


Great case. I have previously blogged about the diagnosis of endocarditis here and here.

Patient with multiple prosthetic valves develops sepsis in the context of an enterococcal bacteremia. Highly suspicious though non diagnostic echo for PVIE. Treated with VANCOMYCIN ("penicillin allergy" is a pet peeve of mine) and GENTAMICIN (for synergy). The evidence for synergy is not totally supported by clinical experience. Nephrotoxiciy is common but similarly has not been shown to impact mortality. The combination of VANCOMYCIN with an aminoglycoide increases the risk of nephrotoxicity.

We also reviewed aminoglycoside ototoxicity -- presenting either as sensory-neuro hearing loss or vestibulary dysfunction.

This patient developed renal failure presumably related to ATN from the VANCO+GENT; however, one can get a glomerulonephritis in endocarditis.

There is evidence that AMPICILLIN plus CEFTRIAXONE (which usually has no enterococcal coverage) can be used effectively in the treatment of enterococcal endocarditis.

No comments:

Post a Comment