Huan-ling Wang, Hong-wei Fan, Li-gang Fang, Wei-guo Zhu, Heng Zhang, Zheng-yin Liu, Tai-sheng Li, Guo-hua Deng, Rui-yuan Sheng, Ai-xia Wang
OBJECTIVE: To report the clinical characteristics of prosthetic valve endocarditis (PVE). METHODS: All 25 cases of definite PVE (Duke criteria) diagnosed at our hospital between January 1992 to December 2008 were retrospectively analyzed. Among them, 7 cases were pathologically confirmed and the others were clinically confirmed with either 2 major criteria or 1 major and ≥ 3 minor criteria. Their clinical characteristics, underlying heart diseases, previous heart operations, presenting manifestations, causative microbes, echocardiographic findings and prognosis, were studied...
September 2010: Zhonghua Nei Ke za Zhi [Chinese Journal of Internal Medicine]