[Obstructive mitral vegetations in bacterial endocarditis. Disappearance after migration as an embolism].

An unusual form of mitral valve endocarditis was observed on echocardiography. A 49 year old female with well tolerated mitral stenosis and mild aortic incompetence contracted staphylococcal endocarditis. Pulmonary venous hypertension developed and the diastolic murmur increased. The echocardiogramme showed voluminous vegetations obstructing the stenosed mitral orifice in diastole, simulating a left atrial myxoma. An acute ischaemic episode of the lower limb occurred under antibiotic therapy. A voluminous fibrino-cruoric infected embolus was extracted from the iliac artery and a second echocardiogramme showed the intra mitral mass to have disappeared. Concurrently, the diastolic murmur decreased and the signs of intolerance disappeared. When the infective process seemed to have been controlled, the patient died suddenly. Post-mortem examination showed fresh mitral endocardial lesions and renal and splenic infarcts. Five cases of mitral obstruction by vegetations have been previously reported, three of which had echocardiographic studies. The echocardiographic image is stereotyped and resembles a myxoma wedged in the mitral orifice but without the intra atrial mass. This type of mitral obstruction complicated moderate mitral stenosis in all cases. Regression of the echographic appearances of valvular vegetations has been reported in rare cases, but we were unable to find another case of embolism of vegetations reducing the valvular obstruction.