Fatal acanthamoeba encephalitis in a patient with a total artificial heart (syncardia) device

Susanna K Tan; Kiran Gajurel; Christie Tung; Gregory Albers; Stan Deresinski; Jose G Montoya; Ahmad Y Sheikh; Dipanjan Banerjee; Richard Ha

doi:10.1093/ofid/ofu057

Fatal acanthamoeba encephalitis in a patient with a total artificial heart (syncardia) device

Open Forum Infect Dis. 2014 Aug 19;1(2):ofu057. doi: 10.1093/ofid/ofu057. eCollection 2014 Sep.

Authors

Susanna K Tan¹, Kiran Gajurel¹, Christie Tung², Gregory Albers², Stan Deresinski¹, Jose G Montoya¹, Ahmad Y Sheikh³, Dipanjan Banerjee⁴, Richard Ha³

Affiliations

¹ Department of Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases and Geographic Medicine , Stanford University School of Medicine.
² Department of Neurology & Neurological Sciences , Stanford University School of Medicine.
³ Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery , Stanford University School of Medicine.
⁴ Department of Medicine, Division of Cardiovascular Medicine , Stanford University School of Medicine , California.

Abstract

Acanthamoeba encephalitis is an uncommon but often fatal infection complication. Here we report the first case of Acanthamoeba encephalitis in a patient with a Total Artificial Heart device.

Keywords: Acanthamoeba; encephalitis; heart failure; total artificial heart.

Grants and funding

T32 AI007502/AI/NIAID NIH HHS/United States