Background: Echocardiography is an essential evaluation in the diagnosis of infectious endocarditis (IE). Transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) is a portable study that is widely available and non-invasive. Though transesophageal echocardiography (TEE) is traditionally known for higher sensitivity and specificity, it is speculated that improvements in modern TTE imaging could produce higher diagnostic yield than previously thought. [...]

Case Presentation: A 17 year old male recently diagnosed with high risk B-Precursor ALL and induction failure, was found in clinic to have an acute murmur. Three days prior, he had arm and leg aches, dry cough, a single fever and fatigue that improved with blood transfusion. Now he had a 3/6 holosystolic blowing murmur [...]

Case Presentation: A 76- year old smoker woman with a medical history of emphysema and left MCA stroke six months back, presented with acute bilateral occipital headache and visual impairment.On Exam, she was well appearing, normal vital signs, and no murmurs on heart exam. Neurological exam was normal except for dysmetria due to visual impairment [...]

Case Presentation: A 55-year-old obese female presented with daily high fevers, chills, night sweats, malaise, decreased appetite, and nausea for two weeks. Her past medical history is significant for laparoscopic adjustable gastric band (LAGB) surgery eight (8) years prior. On presentation, she was febrile, tachycardic with pallor and hypotensive. Cardiopulmonary and abdominal examination was normal, [...]

Case Presentation: A 36-year-old male with a medical history significant for IV heroin abuse and bipolar disorder presented to the hospital with confusion, fever and chills. Initial vitals were concerning for septic shock, and the patient was promptly started on broad-spectrum antibiotics and aggressively fluid resuscitated following sepsis protocols. Physical examination was concerning for a [...]

Case Presentation: 27 year old Caucasian female admitted with fever, abdominal pain radiating to back. She was not an IV drug user. Has a recent history of facial abscess following spider bite but no signs of cellulitis over extremities. There was a small red spot on lower right eyelid, no Osler nodes, janeway lesions, no [...]

Case Presentation: A 38-year-old male patient with a history of intravenous drug use was transferred from an outside hospital after initial presentation with persistent fevers, episodic flushing and swelling in right hand and forearm. Workup at the other hospital included blood cultures positive for unspeciated yeast, and a transthoracic echocardiogram with normal ejection fraction (65%) [...]

Case Presentation: A 41-year-old woman with no significant medical history and eight weeks postpartum presented to the hospital with new left-sided facial numbness, right labial droop and intermittent numbness of the left arm one day prior to admission. She also had a near-syncopal episode and noticed her speech declined with drooling and facial asymmetry. Admission [...]

Case Presentation: A 64-year-old male with gastric carcinoma and no prior cardiac history presented to the emergency room with altered mental status. On arrival, the patient was tachypneic, hypoxic, hypothermic, tachycardic and hypotensive. Initial investigations showed the patient had a leukocytosis with a left shift. Blood cultures taken upon arrival eventually grew E. Coli, thought [...]

Case Presentation: A 34-year-old man with history of injection (IV) heroin misuse, anxiety, and homelessness presents with dyspnea and pleuritic chest pain. He was recently hospitalized with Methicillin-Sensitive Staph Aureus (MSSA) tricuspid valve (TV) endocarditis complicated by acute heart failure and septic pulmonary emboli but left against medical advice. On admission he was afebrile, tachycardic [...]