46 Results Found

Identification of the causative pathogen is required to optimize the effective therapy in infective endocarditis (IE). The aim of this study was to assess a 16S rDNA PCR to identify bacteria from heart valve tissues and to evaluate its usefulness as...

Abnormal heart valve function is a major cause of heart disease and is often associated with high rates of morbidity and mortality from heart disease. Focusing on the field of valve replacement, tissue-engineered heart valves are becoming popular and...

(1) Background: The successful treatment of infective endocarditis (IE) relies on detecting causative pathogens to administer targeted antibiotic therapy. In addition to standard microbiological cultivation of pathogens from tissue obtained during he...

The heart valve interstitial cell (VIC) population is dynamic and thought to mediate lay down and maintenance of the tri-laminar extracellular matrix (ECM) structure within the developing and mature valve throughout life. Disturbances in the contribu...

Bartonella species have been shown to cause acute, undifferentiated fever in Thailand. A study to identify causes of endocarditis that were blood culture-negative using routine methods led to the first reported case in Thailand of Bartonella endocard...

Critical valve diseases in infants have a very poor prognosis for survival. Particularly challenging is for the valve replacement to support somatic growth. From a valve regenerative standpoint, bio-scaffolds have been extensively investigated recent...

An 8-year-old male Rhodesian Ridgeback was presented with fever and severe thrombocytopenia. Clinical and laboratory examination, echocardiography, blood culture, and pathohistology revealed evidence of infective endocarditis, ischemic renal infarcts...

Background and Objectives: Characterization of patients with endocarditis regarding demographic, clinical, biological and imagistic data, blood culture results and possible correlation between different etiologic factors and host status characteristi...

According to rough estimates, one in every 125 newborns born in the United States has a congenital cardiac abnormality that must be repaired. With the recent development of new biomaterials and innovative treatment methods, percutaneous cardiac valve...

Intravenous drug use is a predisposing condition for infective endocarditis (IE). We report the clinical features of IE, taken from the Italian Registry of IE, in people who inject drugs (PWIDs). The registry prospectively collected epidemiological,...

Transcatheter pulmonary valve replacement is a minimally-invasive alternative treatment for right ventricular outflow tract dysfunction and has been rapidly evolving over the past years. Heart valve prostheses currently available still have major lim...

Cardiovascular calcification, characterized by hydroxyapatite deposition in the arterial wall and heart valves, is associated with high cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. Cardiovascular calcification is a hallmark of aging but is frequently seen...

Ischemia–reperfusion injury (IRI) in the myocardium has been thoroughly researched, especially in acute coronary syndrome and heart transplantation. However, our understanding of IRI implications on cardiac valves is still developing. This know...

Background. The endocardium and cardiac valves undergo severe impact during infective endocarditis (IE), and the formation of vegetation places IE patients at a heightened risk of embolic complications and mortality. The relevant literature indicates...

Coxiella burnetii is one of the most common causes of blood culture-negative infective endocarditis (IE). However, only a few cases of cardiac implantable electronic devices (CIED) infection have been reported in the literature. Herein, we present a...

Background: An extensive use of transesophageal echocardiography (TEE) has recently been suggested for the diagnosis of infective endocarditis (IE). In this study, we investigated whether among patients with negative transthoracic echocardiography (T...

Mitral valve disease (MVD) is a frequent cause of heart failure and death worldwide, but its etiopathogenesis is not fully understood. Interleukin (IL)-33 regulates inflammation and thrombosis in the vascular endothelium and may play a role in the at...

Trichosporon spp. endocarditis is a severe and hard-to-treat infection. Immunosuppressed subjects and carriers of prosthetic valves or intracardiac devices are at risk. This article presents the case of an immunocompetent 74-year-old man affected by...

Heart disease is a leading cause of mortality, with calcific aortic valve disease (CAVD) being the most prevalent subset. Being able to predict this disease in its early stages is important for monitoring patients before they need aortic valve replac...

Since most of the body’s extracellular matrix (ECM) is composed of collagen and elastin, we believe the choice of these materials is key for the future and promise of tissue engineering. Once it is known how elastin content of ECM guides cellul...

The authors report isolation and identification of two strains of bacteria belonging to the genus Janibacter from a human patient with aortic stenosis from a rural area of the country of Georgia. The microorganisms were isolated from aortic heart val...

(1) Background: Granulicatella adiacens is a former nutritionally variant streptococci (NVS). NVS infective endocarditis (IE) is generally characterized by a higher rate of morbidity and mortality, partially due to difficulties in choosing the most a...

Background: Pulmonary valve infective endocarditis (PVIE) is a rare form of infective endocarditis (IE) and is associated with high mortality and severe complications. Guidelines for treatment of this form of IE are scarce and based on general recomm...

The hallmarks of calcific aortic valve disease (CAVD), an active and regulated process involving the creation of calcium nodules, lipoprotein accumulation, and chronic inflammation, are the significant changes that occur in the composition, organizat...

The case of a 61-year-old male with a recent total gastrectomy for a hemorrhagic gastric tumor is presented, with the important co-morbidities of type II diabetes mellitus requiring insulin, chronic hepatitis C with liver dysfunction, stage II essent...

Adipose tissue (AT) is an endocrine and paracrine organ that synthesizes biologically active adipocytokines, which affect inflammation, fibrosis, and atherogenesis. Epicardial and perivascular fat depots are of great interest to researchers, owing to...

Aim of the study. To investigate preoperative status and results of surgery of patients with confirmed diagnosis of aortic root infection. Materials and methods. We have analyzed data of 21 patients who were operated on at the Heart Surgery Center,...

(1) Background: Surgery for infective endocarditis (IE) is associated with considerable mortality and it is controversial whether the female gender is predictive for a worse outcome. This large single-center study investigated the impact of sex on ou...

Infective endocarditis (IE) is a life-threatening condition caused by infection within the endocardium of the heart and commonly involves the valves. The subsequent cascading inflammation leads to the appearance of a highly friable thrombus that is l...

There is continued debate regarding the appropriate cell type to replace valvular interstitial cells (VICs) in tissue engineered heart valves (TEHVs), particularly for pediatric patients. In this work, neonatal human dermal fibroblasts (nhDFFs) were...

(1) Background: Hemoadsorption is a method of blood purification with a wide spectrum of indications. Pre-emptive use of hemoadsorption in patients undergoing heart surgery with cardiopulmonary bypass is considered to reduce the risk of postoperative...

Right-sided infective endocarditis due to methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is strongly associated with intravenous drug abuse, congenital heart disease, or previous medical treatment and is rare in healthy patients without a history...

Fungal endocarditis, despite being a rare diagnosis, has a higher morbidity and mortality rate compared to bacterial endocarditis. Candida species are the most common isolated pathogens involved in fungal endocarditis. Diagnosis is suspected in patie...

Infective endocarditis (IE) is a severe and potentially life-threatening infection that affects the endocardium, the inner lining of the heart chambers and valves. Although rare, it is a potentially fatal condition, with an incidence of 3–10 ca...

Cardiac surgery is necessary in almost 50% of patients with endocarditis. Early surgery, i.e., the surgery performed during the first hospitalization, is required in the following cases: heart failure secondary to valve regurgitation; S. aureus, fung...

The present article presents a case report and literature review concerning the Streptococcus equi subspecies zooepidemicus (SEZ), a rare zoonotic pathogen in humans. The case involves a 62-year-old man with no prior heart disease, presenting with en...

Although regenerative medicine necessitates advanced three-dimensional (3D) scaffolds for organ and tissue applications, creating intricate structures across scales, from nano- to meso-like biological tissues, remains a challenge. Electrospinning of...

Infective endocarditis (IE) is a rare but potentially life-threatening disease, sometimes with longstanding sequels among surviving patients. The population at high risk of IE is represented by patients with underlying structural heart disease and/or...

Background. Campylobacter fetus rarely causes gastrointestinal diseases but shows an affinity for the endovascular epithelium. Methods. We describe a case of C. fetus bacteremia related to vascular prosthesis and pseudoaneurysm infection, with a revi...

Mycobacterium chimaera infections are becoming increasingly frequent in patients with a history of cardiac surgery. We herein report a case of a patient admitted to the Nephrology Unit of Padua University Hospital with deteriorating kidney function,...

Gout is strongly associated with atherosclerosis and other cardiovascular comorbidities. Furthermore, sites of extra-articular monosodium urate (MSU) crystal deposits in gout can include heart valves and atherosclerotic artery plaques, but with uncle...

Noncardiogenic pulmonary edema after cardiac surgery is a rare but severe complication. The etiology remains poorly understood; however, the issue may arise from multiple sources. Possible causes include a significant inflammatory response or an auto...

Calcific aortic valve disease (CAVD) is the most common heart valve disease among aging populations. There are two reported pathways of CAVD: osteogenic and dystrophic, the latter being more prevalent. Current two-dimensional (2D) in vitro CAVD model...

Sternal wound complications following cardiac surgery, including sternal dehiscence, mediastinitis, and osteomyelitis, pose significant challenges in terms of management and patient outcomes. We present a case report highlighting the complex manageme...

In this study, we incorporated carbon nanotubes (CNTs) into poly(styrene-block-isobutylene-block-styrene) (SIBS) to investigate the physical characteristics of the resulting nanocomposite and its cytotoxicity to endothelial cells. CNTs were dispersed...

Infective endocarditis (IE) is a severe and life-threatening disease. Identification of infectious etiology is essential for establishing the appropriate antimicrobial treatment and decreasing mortality. The aim of this study was to explore the poten...