Aortic valve infective endocarditis: could multi-detector CT scan be proposed for routine screening of concomitant coronary artery disease before surgery?

Abstract

Usefulness of the coronary artery study has been questioned in patients with infective valve endocarditis. Fatal events are reported in the literature due to embolization of endocarditic vegetations during cardiac catheterization. For this reason, many authors do not recommend preoperative invasive coronary studies in these patients. We report the case of a 56-year-old patient with prosthetic valve endocarditis with vegetations, and concomitant risk factors for coronary disease. We did preoperative coronary screening using multi-detector computed tomographic scan imaging, which may be useful for noninvasive imaging of the coronary arteries in these patients with high risk of embolization.