For years, doctors have associated the inflammatory heart valve condition infective endocarditis with risk factors such as injection drug use and infection with the streptococcus family of bacteria.But a new international study points to infection with the much harder-to-treat Staphylococcus aureus bacteria as an increasing cause of infective endocarditis, much to the researchers’ alarm. It also found that many of these infections may be occurring in hospitals, nursing homes and other health-care settings."The face of endocarditis, a potentially lethal infection of the heart, has changed fundamentally, in terms of the organism responsible,” said lead researcher Dr. Vance G. Fowler Jr., an assistant professor of medicine at Duke University Medical Center. His team published their findings in the June 22/29 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
