Bacterial Endocarditis

What is Bacterial Endocarditis?

Bacterial endocarditis is a terrible disease that causes the inner layers and heart
valves of the human heart to become inflamed and swollen. This malady comes in two forms: the most common and well-known form is infective bacterial endocarditis. There is also a rarer and confusing form known as non-infective bacterial endocarditis. Bacterial endocarditis is so dangerous because of the place that it infects. BE infects the heart valves of a person. These valves receive no blood flow of their own, therefore making them void of the necessary white blood cells to fight off infection.

What is Infective Bacterial Endocarditis?

The branch of the disease known as infective bacterial endocarditis is divided into six specific distinctions of its own. First of all, most people experience either short incubation or long incubation. Short incubation lasts no more than six weeks while long incubation can be extensively longer than six weeks. Infective endocarditis is also divided into the categories of culture negative or culture positive. Culture negative bacterial endocarditis takes longer to be identified definitely in a laboratory. This form of endocarditis is rooted to pathogens. Another division of infective bacterial endocarditis is the separation between native valve endocarditisand prosthetic valve endocarditis.

What is Non-infective Bacterial Endocarditis?

Non-infective bacterial endocarditis, also known as marantic, is a very rare form of the heart malady that usually occurs in patients who are infected with other diseases. There is one branch of non-infective bacterial endocarditis called Libman-Sacks endocarditis. This branch usually occurs in people who are infected with diseases like lupus, cancer, or antiphospholipid syndrome. Not much is known or revealed about this rare form of bacterial endocarditis.

Causes

Infective bacterial endocarditis is caused by a number of different micro organisms that can enter the body through the mouth. Some of these pathogens are…

• Alpha-hemolytic streptococci, a mouth abiding organism

• Staphylococcus aureus, a skin induced bacteraemia

• and Enterococci, a bacterium that enters the bloodstream through abnormal

medical complications

There are also many bacterias that give clues to the infection of bacterialendocarditis. They are…

• A yeast called Candida albicans, which is related with the use of IVs

• Contaminating water organisms called Pseudomonas

• Streptococcus bovis, a characteristic of bowel cancer

• Hacek organisms, who infect the human gums

These endocarditis bacteria attach themselves to the damaged heart valve after dental procedures and the infection begins. Other causes of infective bacterial endocarditis are colorectal cancer, urinary tract infections, and IV drug uses. These serious issues can cause bacterial endocarditis to occur to the healthiest of patients.

Symptoms

Infective bacterial endocarditis is characterized by a number of symptoms. Some people experience a rising fever and an increasing change in their heart’s beat and murmur. They also receive Roth spots on their retina and experience vegetations on their heart valves. Patients often experience circulatory problems, like strokes, and chronic renal failure. Others become infected with Osler’s nodes, Janeway lesions, and Conjunctival petechiae.

Medicine and Treatment

There are antibiotics given to victims of heart problems to prevent infective bacterial endocarditis or stop it from happening. These drugs spread out antibiotic molecules into the valves and chambers of the heart. The medicine is continued to a certain extent of time, depending on the patient and the seriousness of the infection. Some patients do not respond to these antibiotics, and in that case a surgery is performed to remove the diseased valve. The replacement valves are typically either metallic or bio prosthetic (from pigs). These procedures are taken to prevent death by bacterial endocarditis; however twenty-five percent of the people who becomeinfected with it die.

This drawing depicts a cross-sectional view of a human heart that is diseased with infective endocarditis.

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