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Updated: May 26, 2025
A New Murine Model of Endovascular Aortic Aneurysm Repair
Published on: July 7, 2013
Predictors of Visceral Infectious Aneurysms in Patients with Infective Endocarditis and Systemic Embolization
Monique Boukobza1, Emila Ilic-Habensus2, Xavier Duval2,3,4
1Department of Radiology, Bichat-Claude Bernard Hospital, Assistance Publique-Hôpitaux de Paris, 75018 Paris, France.
Background:
To study whether infective endocarditis patients (IE-patients) with visceral embolic events (VEEs) at admission are at greater risk of developing visceral infectious aneurysms (VIAs) in left-sided infective endocarditis (LSIE) patients.
Methods:
We compared the data of prospectively collected 474 consecutive LSIE-patients (2005-2020) with and without VIAs. A whole-body-CTA was part of the initial work-up for all patients.
Results:
A total of 24 patients (5.1%) with VIA were included, of whom 19 (79.2%) had at least one VEE, compared to a proportion of 34% (p < 0.001) in IE-patients without VIAs. Both groups also differed in terms of vegetation size (>15 mm: 48% vs. 18%, p < 0.001), microorganisms, Streptococcus spp. (68.5% vs. 42%, p = 0.003), rare microorganisms (36% vs. 8.3%, p < 0.001) and concomitant extra-visceral infectious aneurysms (42% vs. 12.8%, p < 0.001). Cardiac surgery was performed in 21 patients (87.5%) and in-hospital mortality occurred in 2 (8%).
Conclusions:
This study shows a different profile of VIA-LSIE patients compared to LSIE-patients without. Streptococcus species were the most frequent causal agents. Our study indicates that the presence of VEEs in LSIE-patients could suggest an increased risk of VIA. This study also shows the need for further abdominal-CTA in all cases of left sided IE to detect asymptomatic visceral aneurysms.
