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EXPERIMENTAL ENDOCARDITIS IN RABBITS.
Author(s) -
Gutschik Ernö,
Norwood Robert S.,
MøLler Susanne,
Olling Sante
Publication year - 1980
Publication title -
acta pathologica microbiologica scandinavica section b microbiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.909
H-Index - 88
eISSN - 1600-0463
pISSN - 0304-131X
DOI - 10.1111/j.1699-0463.1980.tb02640.x
Subject(s) - endocarditis , medicine , serratia marcescens , incidence (geometry) , pathological , streptococcus , pathophysiology , catheter , microbiology and biotechnology , proteolytic enzymes , surgery , pathology , bacteria , biology , enzyme , escherichia coli , biochemistry , optics , gene , physics , genetics
In order to investigate the course of Serratia marcescens endocarditis in groups of rabbits with and without an indwelling catheter, 130 rabbits were pretreated to produce left‐sided endocarditis. Three clinical isolates of S. marcescens were used to infect the rabbits, i.e. CDC 013 (serum sensitive, proteolytic), SM 104 (serum resistant, proteolytic) and SM 55 (highly serum resistant, non‐proteolytic). Ten rabbits with an indwelling catheter were challenged with CDC 013 and none of them died or showed evidence of endocarditis 28 days later. In groups of rabbits with indwelling catheters which were challenged with SM 104 or SM 55 there was a high incidence of endocarditis (19/20, 18/20, respectively), while groups without catheters inoculated with the same strains had a lower incidence (5/20, 15/20, respectively). In contrast to earlier observations with Streptococcus faecalis , the clinical and pathological data were not significantly influenced by the presence or absence of proteolytic capacity of the infecting strains. The results indicate that the ability of S. marcescens to establish endocarditis depends significantly on the degree of serum resistance of the strains. This difference was only demonstrable in experiments without an indwelling catheter during the infection period. The distrurbing influence of an indwelling catheter is discussed, and it is concluded that experimental models using indwelling catheters are inappropriate for studies on the pathophysiology of endocarditis.