Prosthetic aortic valve endocarditis complicated by COVID‐19 and hemorrhage

Hussain, Azhar; Roberts, Neil; Oo, Aung

The novel coronavirus, now termed SARS‐CoV‐2, has caused a significant global impact in the space of 4 months. Almost all elective cardiac surgical operations have been postponed with only urgent and emergency operations being considered in order to maximise resource utilisation. We present a case of a 69‐year old lady with an infected prosthetic aortic valve for consideration of urgent inpatient surgery. Despite being asymptomatic and testing negative initially for COVID‐19 RT‐PCR swab, further investigations with CT revealed suspicious findings. She subsequently tested positive on a repeat swab and unfortunately deteriorated rapidly with complications including gastro‐intestinal and intracerebral haemorrhage.