Late Postoperative Prosthetic Pulmonary Valve Endocarditis in a 13-Year-Old Girl with Repaired Tetralogy of Fallot

Prosthetic pulmonary valve endocarditis has infrequently been described outside large cohort reviews, which have typically focused on infections of the left-sided heart valves. Hence, the pathogenesis, clinical presentation, and management principles of prosthetic pulmonary valve endocarditis have not been well differentiated from those of infected aortic and mitral valves. More patients with repaired tetralogy of Fallot are reaching adulthood and will need pulmonary valve implantation. Consequently, a focus on this infrequent but serious cardiac infection is needed, to learn what characteristics might distinguish it from infections of left-sided heart valves. We report the case of a 13-year-old girl with repaired tetralogy of Fallot who presented with fever and nonspecific symptoms. The patient initially failed to meet the Duke criteria for endocarditis but was then found to have endocarditis of her prosthetic pulmonary valve. We explanted the valve and replaced it with a pulmonary homograft, after which the patient had no infectious sequelae. In addition to presenting the patient's case, we review the literature on surgically inserted prosthetic pulmonary valves and discuss the primary management concerns when those valves become infected with endocarditis.