endocarditis
Meaning of endocarditis: Endocarditis is inflammation of the heart's inner lining and valves, most often from bacterial infection reaching the bloodstream and heart tissue.
Definition of endocarditis
Endocarditis is inflammation of the endocardium, the thin tissue lining the inside of the heart's chambers and covering its valves. It develops when microorganisms, usually bacteria and less often fungi, enter the bloodstream and attach to the endocardium or to a heart valve, particularly one already damaged or abnormal, forming a growth called a vegetation.
The heart valves are affected most often because normal blood flow across them creates turbulence that lets circulating organisms settle and multiply there. Pieces of an infected vegetation can break free and travel through the bloodstream to other organs, and the ongoing infection can also damage or destroy the valve itself, interfering with normal heart function.
Because endocarditis can progress quickly and cause lasting valve damage, it is generally treated as a serious infection requiring prompt evaluation, and certain heart conditions or prior valve damage raise the likelihood that a bloodstream infection will settle in the heart rather than elsewhere.
Also known as
Used in a sentence
Blood cultures were obtained after persistent fever raised concern for endocarditis in a patient with a prosthetic heart valve.
Good to know
Endocarditis is often first suspected because of persistent fever and a new or changed heart murmur, findings that can also arise from many other conditions, so blood cultures and cardiac imaging are used to confirm the diagnosis.
Word origin
Where “endocarditis” comes from
Formed from Greek endon, meaning within, and kardia, meaning heart, combined with the suffix -itis, meaning inflammation.