Fungal endocarditis in non drug-addict patients. Ten years of experience

Introduction and objectives. Fungal endocarditis is an uncommon but serious disease. Five cases of fungal endocarditis, involving non-addict patients, were diagnosed at our hospital in the last 10 years. Results. Causal organisms included Candida albicans (3 patients), Saccharom yces (1 patient) and Torulopsis glabrata (1 patient). The predisposing cond ition to fungal infection was previous cardiac surgery in four cases (three of them with prosthetic heart valves and the other patient underwent total surgical correction of Tetralogy of Fallot). No predisposing cause was fou nd in one patient. All patients developed important complications. Three ca ses underwent cardiac surgery that evolved favorably and two patients had c ontraindications for surgery and died from multiorgan septic involvement (o verall survival was 60%). Conclusions. The incidence of fungal endocarditis involving non-addict pati ents has represented 3% of all cases of infective endocarditis. Even nowada ys, fungal endocarditis is a disease with a high mortality and a precocious diagnosis in important to aproach surgical treatment and to improve its pr ognosis.