Central venous catheter-induced endocarditis: human correlate of the animal experimental model of endocarditis.

A case of right-sided endocarditis clearly associated with the presence of a right atrial catheter is presented, and the literature on septicemia and endocarditis associated with central venous and pulmonary artery catheterization is reviewed. In the majority of cases of catheter-associated endocarditis reported in the literature, diagnosis has been made at autopsy; echocardiographic diagnosis has been reported only recently. The case presented in this report represents the only case in this literature in which the lesion causing right-sided endocarditis has been identified by two-dimensional echocardiogram and confirmed by tissue diagnosis. The mechanism of direct traumatization of the endocardium by the catheter makes central venous catheter-induced endocarditis bear pathophysiologic similarity to the experimental model of endocarditis in animals.