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Background: Coxiella burnetii endocarditis is considered to be a late complication of Q fever in patients with preexisting valvular heart disease (VHD). We observed a large transient aortic vegetation in a patient with acute Q fever and high levels of IgG anticardiolipin antibodies (IgG aCL). Therefore, we sought to determine how commonly acute Q fever could cause valvular vegetations associated with antiphospholipid antibody syndrome, which would be a new clinical entity., Methods: We performed a consecutive case series between January 2007 and April 2014 at the French National Referral Center for Q fever. Age, sex, history of VHD, immunosuppression, and IgG aCL assessed by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay were tested as potential predictors., Results: Of the 759 patients with acute Q fever and available echocardiographic results, 9 (1.2%) were considered to have acute Q fever endocarditis, none of whom had a previously known VHD. After multiple adjustment, very high IgG aCL levels (>100 immunoglobulin G-type phospholipid units; relative risk [RR], 24.9 [95% confidence interval {CI}, 4.5-140.2]; P = .002) and immunosuppression (RR, 10.1 [95% CI, 3.0-32.4]; P = .002) were independently associated with acute Q fever endocarditis., Conclusions: Antiphospholipid antibody syndrome with valvular vegetations in acute Q fever is a new clinical entity. This would suggest the value of systematically testing for C. burnetii in antiphospholipid-associated cardiac valve disease, and performing early echocardiography and antiphospholipid dosages in patients with acute Q fever., (© The Author 2015. Published by Oxford University Press for the Infectious Diseases Society of America. All rights reserved. For permissions, e-mail journals.permissions@oup.com.)

Purpose: Patients with systemic rheumatic diseases are rarely admitted in intensive care units and very few studies focusing on the prognosis of those patients have been published., Methods: Retrospective study over seven years in two intensive care units., Results: Among 33 patients with systemic disease diagnosed 90 +/- 133 months before admission in the intensive care unit, who were aged 50 +/- 21 years and represented a total of 39 stays in the intensive care unit, the main cause of admission was acute respiratory failure (33%). Mean simplified acute physiology score (SAPS II) was 47 +/- 22. Two-thirds of the patients were under mechanical ventilation. Infection was diagnosed in 33% of the cases and exacerbation of the systemic rheumatic disease in 26%. Nosocomial infection was found in 19 patients (49%). Ten patients died during their stay in the intensive care unit, six from infection, three from an exacerbation of the systemic rheumatic disease, one from an unidentified cause., Conclusion: Even if severity scores of patients suffering from systemic diseases are higher at admission in intensive care units than those of other patients, there is no relevant reason to refuse critical care to these patients.

Based on a rare case of heterotopic hepatic transplantation (HHT) carried out in a 24 year old woman for fulminant hepatitis of viral origin, the authors present the technique used and the principal post-operative events (rejection, resistant large volume ascites and the clinical course for the liver itself). They discuss the rarity of success in this type of graft, where the causes of failure in man have not been entirely elucidated: the venous pre-existing portal hypertension is probably a very unfavorable factor. The place of this particular type of HHT in cases of acute severe hepatic failure is then proposed: this may produce a smaller operative insult than orthotopic transplantation and, in this respect, deserves consideration when advanced hepatic encephalopathy is present, notably due to delay in finding a suitable graft.

Four patients in status asthmaticus and with alveolar hypoventilation were given a helium-oxygen (He-O2) mixture to breathe during 4 hours. Clinical improvement and return to normal of arterial blood gas levels were rapid and dramatic in all patients. The He-O2 mixture, which is a low density gas, causes a reduction in pulmonary resistance and an improvement in overall alveolar ventilation.