[Fever and lung abscesses in anorexia nervosa after infusion therapy]

A 26 year old female patient was admitted to our hospital because of septic temperatures and chills. In the patient's history renal insufficiency has been known for several years due to agenesia of the right and pyelonephritic renal congestion of the left kidney. Long lasting anorexia nervosa had been treated by psychotherapeutical interventions for years and when failing it necessitated repeated intravenous nutrition by central venous lines. The prominent symptom of the intravenously treated young woman was fever up to 39.7 degrees C and pneumonia, which was considered by the first treating clinic to be caused directly by diminished immunoreactivity in malnutrition and preuremia. The chest X-ray confirmed pneumonia and revealed multiple abscesses in both lungs (Figure 1). After being transferred to our intensive care unit the pathophysiological context became obvious. From inspection (positive jugular pulsation), from auscultation (holosystolic murmur at the left parasternal border) tricuspid incompetence due to infective endocarditis was suspected. This was confirmed immediately by TM and two-dimensional transthoracic echocardiography, which showed a large vegetation on the anterior tricuspid valve leaflet (Figures 2a and 2b). Tricuspid regurgitation was also ascertained by color flow echocardiography (Figure 2c). Several blood cultures were positive for staphylococcus aureus. Clinical and laboratory recovery was achieved by antibiotic therapy with vancomycin and cephtazidim for 3 months.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)