Scrub typhus presenting as mitral valve infective endocarditis.

Abstract

Scrub typhus presenting as infective endocarditis of the mitral valve is rare. There are few reports of infective endocarditis by scrub typhus with just one previous report of involvement of the aortic valve. An 18-year-old woman presented with prolonged fever for 1 month. Her repeated blood cultures were negative. She was finally diagnosed to have scrub typhus with scrub typhus IgM being positive and became afebrile with prolonged oral doxycycline monotherapy. Although atypical organisms such as Legionella, Mycoplasma and Coxiella are described to cause culture-negative endocarditis, vegetations were present on both the anterior and posterior mitral valve leaflets in our patient.