[Clinical and morphological features of infectious endocarditis in HIV-infected intravenous drug abusers].

The aim of this work was to study the clinical course and morphogenesis of infectious endocarditis in HIV-infected intravenous drug abusers. In this patients, endocarditis was an acute disease with high frequency of thromboembolic complications and ill-defined exudative component of the inflammatory reaction. Autopsies dated to 1993-2008 showed that neither the presence of morphological signs of early HIV infection nor chronic hepatitis C with minimal or moderate inflammation has an appreciable effect on the intrahospital mortality rate in these patients.