Infective endocarditis in non-HIV immunosuppressed patients.

UNLABELLED: Infective endocarditis is a septic illness with sudden or insidious onset that causes heart lesions or aggravates the preexisting ones; during its course it can affect other organs, mortality being high.

AIM: To identify non-HIV immunosuppressed patients with infective endocarditis, namely those with associated diabetes, hepatitis, cancer, or old age with multiple comorbidities, and to assess the nosocomial risk by Carmeli score.

MATERIAL AND METHODS: This is a retrospective study using epidemiological, clinical, laboratory and treatment data from 56 patients admitted to and diagnosed with infective endocarditis at the lasi Infectious Diseases Hospital in the interval January 2008 - May 2012. To these patients we looked for non-HIV immunosuppressed character, having in their pathology association diabetes, chronic hepatitis, malignancy, or other comorbidities.

RESULTS: From the infective endocarditis patients, 92.8% were found non-HIV immunosuppressed, 25% of them presenting renal failure, and 21.1% having diabetes. The most common Carmeli score obtained was score 2 in 57.1% of the cases. In these patients, the most frequent etiologic agent of infective endocarditis was Enterococcus faecalis (16%), followed by Staphylococcus aureus (10.7%).

CONCLUSIONS: It was noted that in addition to endocardial damage due to the multiple etiologic agents involved, non-HIV immunosuppression in these patients plays an important role. The association of Carmeli score in patients diagnosed with infective endocarditis is significant, especially in case of adequate therapy initiation for a right treatment of this pathology.