title: A 72-year-old woman with an uncorrected tetralogy of Fallot presenting with possible pulmonary endocarditis: a case report.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Tetralogy of Fallot is one of the most common forms of cyanotic congenital heart disease and in the absence of surgical correction it has an elevated early mortality, with most patients dying in childhood.The authors reported this case because of the unusual course of an uncorrected tetralogy of Fallot. There are only a few reports of patients with an uncorrected tetralogy of Fallot who reach an advanced age and to the best of our knowledge this is the first case report of a possible endocarditis in a patient with an uncorrected tetralogy of Fallot who is older than 70 years.
  
  
  METHODS
  The authors present a case of a 72-year-old Caucasian woman with uncorrected tetralogy of Fallot who was admitted with fever and heart failure to our Cardiology Department with possible infective endocarditis.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The longevity of this patient is probably due to the association between a large ventricular septal defect, a balanced subpulmonary stenosis and to the presence of systemic hypertension. After empiric antibiotic therapy, the patient was discharged and no surgical intervention was performed due to her previous benign evolution.
authors.affiliation: Cardiology Department, Faro Hospital, Rua Leão Penedo, Faro 8000, Portugal. Peter_senado2002@yahoo.com.
authors.forename: Pedro
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Sousa
authors.forename: Walter
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Santos
authors.forename: Nuno
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Marques
authors.forename: Pedro
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Cordeiro
authors.forename: Rui
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Ferrinha
authors.forename: Salomé
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Pereira
authors.forename: Ana
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Almeida
authors.forename: Ilídio
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Jesus