Staphylococcus capitis causing infective endocarditis: not so uncommon
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Staphylococcus capitis causing infective endocarditis: not so uncommon Vincent Tchana‑Sato1 · Jean Olivier Defraigne1 Received: 20 June 2020 / Accepted: 24 August 2020 © Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2020
To the Editor, We read with utmost interest the paper by Al Hennawi et al. entitled “native valve Staphylococcus capitis (S. capitis) infective endocarditis: a mini review” [1]. In that interesting paper, the authors reported the case of a young patient with multiple co-morbidities who developed a native aortic valve infective endocarditis (IE) due to S. capitis. The patient was successfully managed by antibiotic therapy alone. In addition, the authors presented a review of the English literature on all reported cases of S. capitis endocarditis. S. capitis is a Gram-positive, catalase-positive, coagulasenegative staphylococcus. It is a commensal of the skin of the human scalp and forehead, which has been found to be a rare causative agent of native and prosthetic valve endocarditis. We fully agree with the authors that S. capitis native valve endocarditis can be managed conservatively with antibiotics, while prompt surgical removal of infected pacemaker or prosthetic valve is recommended to improve the clinical outcome of patients with prosthetic valves and pacemakerassociated endocarditis. A recent evaluation of our center’s management of patients with S. capitis IE led us to review the English literature on this entity. The literature review was performed using the Medline database with endocarditis and S. capitis as the two key words. We would like to comment on the manuscript published in February 2020 by Al Hennawi et al. [1]. The authors stated that after reviewing the English literature, including their reported case, IE due to S. capitis had thus far been described in a total of 13 patients: ten cases of native valve endocarditis [1–8] and three cases of prosthetic valves and This comment refers to the article available online at https://doi. org/10.1007/s15010-019-01311-8. * Vincent Tchana‑Sato [email protected] 1
Department of Cardiovascular Surgery, CHU Liege, B35 Sart Tilman, 4000 Liege, Belgium
pacemaker-associated endocarditis [9–11]. This assessment would appear to have missed a few cases. Indeed, the review does not include the case of native aortic valve endocarditis due to S. capitis described by Kamalesh et al. in an elderly diabetic patient who died despite appropriate antibiotic therapy [12]. The review also does not cover the case of a native mitral valve endocarditis due to S. capitis in a 71-year-old male with multiple co-morbidities who also died of heart failure despite antibiotic therapy as described by Kamalakannan et al. [13]. Konishi et al. also described a rare case of S. capitis mitral valve IE in a 53-year-old male who had undergone repeat mitral annuloplasty 2 months earlier. The patient was treated by surgery and antibiotics. Unfortunately, the authors did not report the results of the mitral annuloplasty ring culture [14].
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