Introduction
Infectious endocarditis is a rare life-threatening complication of pregnancy. We report a pregnancy complicated by a 3.5-cm infected vegetation of the tricuspid valve initially presenting as unilateral hip pain as well as systematic review of this entity.
Sources
A MEDLINE review of the English language literature from 1965 to present using the search terms 'endocarditis', 'pregnancy' and 'infection' as well as review of references was performed.
Results
Sixty-eight cases of infectious endocarditis complicating pregnancy were identified. The calculated maternal and fetal mortality rates were 22.1% and 14.7% respectively.
Conclusions
With persistent symptomatic lesions, delivery should be considered without regard to measures of fetal lung maturity because of high fetal mortality rates.