{"id":11740,"date":"2019-01-03T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-01-03T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/1millionbestdownloads.com\/condition-heart-failure-prosthetic-valve-endocarditis\/"},"modified":"2019-01-03T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2019-01-03T00:00:00","slug":"condition-heart-failure-prosthetic-valve-endocarditis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/1millionbestdownloads.com\/condition-heart-failure-prosthetic-valve-endocarditis\/","title":{"rendered":"This Man Died After a Yeast Infection—in His Heart"},"content":{"rendered":"
Warning: Put down your lunch before reading this. You’ve probably never seen an image of a yeast infection blocking a heart valve—and it’s a sight.<\/p>\n Newly detailed in today’s New England Journal of Medicine<\/i> is the case of a 76-year-old man with a history of congestive heart failure<\/a>, a condition when your heart is too weak to pump blood as it should. The patient went to the emergency room reporting shortness of breath<\/a> that was getting worse.<\/p>\n As doctors from University Hospital in Bern, Switzerland, detail in the NEJM case report, nine months prior, the man had had a surgical procedure called a transcatheter aortic-valve replacement<\/a>, which is intended to repair a damaged heart valve by placing a prosthetic valve within the existing valve.<\/p>\n RELATED: This 29-Year-Old Went to the Doctor for a Rash—and It Turned Out He Had HIV<\/a><\/b><\/p>\n When doctors examined the man, they also found that he had a temperature of 102.2 degrees Fahrenheit, and a cardiac exam revealed a systolic heart murmur, sounds that are made when the heart contracts. These sounds are graded on a scale<\/a> of one to six—six being the loudest. His was a five.<\/p>\n After a chest X-ray, doctors suspected the patient had pulmonary edema<\/a>, when the lungs have excess fluid. But when they got the lab results back from his bloodwork, they saw he had a high white blood cell count (meaning there are a lot of disease-fighting cells coursing through the body) and high levels of C-reactive protein, which is a marker for inflammation. Blood tests revealed the problem: a type of yeast called Candida parapsilosis<\/i>.<\/p>\n RELATED: What Are Yeast Infections?<\/p>\n Additional tests showed “a large vegetation causing substantial obstruction” of the valve, the case study authors wrote. You can see this blockage in the photo below, which is rather remarkable.<\/p>\n The patient was treated with antifungal drugs for the yeast infection and underwent surgery to replace the valve. Unfortunately, his struggles didn’t end there. The man had a wound infection after surgery, and four weeks after leaving the hospital, he was readmitted with pneumonia. He later died after being hospitalized for two months.<\/p>\n Candida Endocarditis after TAVR<\/span> , happens when a prosthetic heart valve becomes infected, something that occurs in up to 2.3% of patients annually and can be deadly. Shortness of breath<\/a> can mean a lot of different things—and this man’s situation was unique in that he had a prosthetic valve—but this case is a reminder of just how serious that symptom can be (and why it should be checked out by a doctor ASAP).<\/p>\n