Chronic cryptic Q-fever infection of the heart.

Evidence of chronic Coxiella burneti infection of the heart, a disease previously considered peculiar to patients with valvular heart-disease, was found in a patient during routine serological tests before resection of a ventricular aneurysm and also by isolation of the rickettsia from the resected tissue. The patient had no symptoms or signs of Q-fever endocarditis and none of the laboratory evidence usually associated with it.