Infective endocarditis with inflammatory lesions in the peripheral nervous system.

A 64-year-old woman developed septicemia and a generalized peripheral neuropathy while being ventilated postoperatively. No cause for the neuropathy could be found during life. At autopsy she was found to have infective endocarditis and multifocal inflammatory lesions in the central and peripheral nervous systems, consistent with damage due to septic emboli. Infective endocarditis may be a cause of a generalized polyradiculoneuropathy and could be responsible for a proportion of cases of "critical illness polyneuropathy".