title: An observational study on infective endocarditis: a single center experience.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Cloning of microorganisms on heart endothelium can lead to infective endocarditis (IE). The prototypic lesion of infective endocarditis, the vegetation is a mass of platelets, fibrin, microcolonies of microorganisms, and scant inflammatory cells.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  The aim of this study was to evaluate patients with IE and also focusing on echocardiographic data and comparison between TTE (transthoracic echocardiography) and TEE (transesophageal echocardiography) of native and prosthetic valve endocarditis and the final impact of IE (infective endocarditis) in these patients with endocarditis.
  
  
  METHODS
  All patients with IE admitted to our center between 2007 and 2010 were studied. All echocardiographies were performed by the same echocardiographer. Echocardiography and lab tests were performed for all patients. We used SPSS 16 for data analysis.
  
  
  RESULTS
  We studied 35 patients, 45% male and 55% female with a mean age of 56.36 ± 12.44 years. Fever (80%) and chills (65.7%) were the most common symptoms. There was only a positive blood culture and enterococci sensitive to vancomycin and amoxicillin. The most involved valve was mitral (54.2%) and then aortic valve (48.5%) (two patients had vegetation on both aortic and mitral valves). In this study, specificity and sensitivity of TEE were 100% and 88.6%. Six patients (17.1%) died and six patients needed surgery.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Endocarditis is an important disease with a high mortality rate if not treated appropriately. Therefore, these patients need more attention. In echocardiography, vegetation and complications of IE such as abscess and paravalvular leakage can be detected.
authors.affiliation: Molecular Biology Research Center, Baqiyatallah University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, IR Iran.
authors.forename: Seyed Mohammad Javad
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Hosseini
authors.affiliation: Atherosclerosis Research Center, Baqiyatallah University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, IR Iran.
authors.forename: Ramezan
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Bakhshian
authors.affiliation: Atherosclerosis Research Center, Baqiyatallah University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, IR Iran.
authors.forename: Maryam
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Moshkani Farahani
authors.affiliation: Cardiovascular Department, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, IR Iran.
authors.forename: Morteza
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Abdar Esfahani
authors.affiliation: Occupational Research Center, Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, IR Iran.
authors.forename: Amir
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Bahrami
authors.affiliation: Baqiyatallah University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, IR Iran.
authors.forename: Ali
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Sate
keywords: Infective Endocarditis; Transesophageal Echocardiography; Transthoracic Echocardiography