Vascular disease in infective endocarditis. Report of immune-mediated events in skin and brain.

A patient with subacute bacterial endocarditis, who had a prosthetic mitral valve, exhibited hypocomplementemia, mixed (IgG, IgM) cryoglobulinemia, and widespread dermal vasculitis with IgM deposited at the dermoepidermal junction. Postmortem findings included immune-complex glomerulonephritis and deposits of IgG in the choroid plexus. These findings are consistent with a generalized vasculitis, which may be mediated by circulating immune complexes; basement membrane localization of immune complexes to the skin and choroid plexus appears not to be specific for systemic lupus erythematosus, as has been previously thought, but may represent the general phenomenon of immune-mediated pathogenesis.