The increasing incidence of Streptococcus bovis endocarditis and bacteraemia: A case series from 1997 to 2010

摘要

Streptococcus bovis (S. bovis) is a cause of infective endocarditis and has been commonly associated with colorectal neoplasia (CRN) for over 30 years [1,2). Many authorities advise that patients with S. bovis endocarditis should have a bowel evaluation to investigate colorectal neoplasia as an underlying cause, although the effectiveness of this strategy has not been evaluated [3]. Patients with S. bovis endocarditis are, in general, older than patients with endocarditis from other organisms [4,5] and the increased screening of S. bovis bacteraemia patients allows for significant bias towards overestimating the prevalence of CRN in this group. Given the international, national, and temporal differences in the epidemiology of S. bovis bacteraemia [6-14], we sought to determine the incidence of S. bovis bacteraemia in our patients, and their risk of CRN.