Cardiovascular Diseases & Diagnosis

Endocarditis is associated with significant morbidity and mortality world over especially in the developing countries. The disease has varied presentations. Common etiological agents include Streptococcus viridians, Coagulase negative Staphylococcus, Staphylococcus aureus and Enterococus in the culture positive endocarditis. Rarely fungi may also lead to vegetations which are often large in size and require surgery beside medical treatment. We present a case case report of endocarditis due to Aspergillus species with Brucellosis presented is in a lady treated with valvular replacement and antifungal therapy with voriconazole.

The aim of the study is to evaluate the impact of new humoral substances: copeptin and mid- regional proadrenomedullin (MR-proADM) on one-year survival of patients with stable systolic chronic heart failure (CHF) and to compare them with AHEAD score assessing the comorbidities. The FAR NHL (FARmacology and NeuroHumoraL activation) registry is a database of patients with stable CHF (ejection fraction (EF) <50%) treated in specialized HF departments. AHEAD score is a simple bed-side mortality predictive model based on age and comorbidities. Primary endpoint after 1-year follow-up was: death or hospitalization for decompensation of HF or heart transplantation or LVAD implantation. To whole FAR NHL registry, a total amount of 1088 patients were included, in 552 of them the levels of copeptin and MR-proADM were available. Mean age was 65+12 years, mean EF was 31+9%. Patients without primary endpoint were assigned as group A (469 pts), those with the primary endpoint group B (83 pts). There were statistically significant differences between the groups in the levels of copeptin: group A median 15.9 pmol/l (3.4-50.9) vs group B 23.7 pmol/l(5.0-89.44) (p<0.001), MR-proADM: group A median 0.63 nmol/l(0.32-1.34) vs group B 0.74 nmol/l (0.4-1.94) (p<0.001). Relationship of AHEAD score to primary endpoint in the first year of follow-up was not significant, but within 24th month it reached statistical significance: p= 0.017. Patients with higher AHEAD score (more comorbidities) reached more often the primary end-point. The cutt-off value ≥ 23.7 for copeptin had 50.6% sensitivity and 73.3%. The cut –off value for MR-proADM ≥ 0.58 had higher sensitivity 79.5% and lower specificity 42.0%. For both humoral substances there was statistical significant difference for discrimination of patients with primary endpoint in lower AHEAD score groups. However, in the highest AHEAD score the level of these substances lost their predictive value.