[Articular and muscular manifestations of bacterial endocarditis. 11 cases (author's transl)].

We report 11 cases of bacterial endocarditis with muscular and articular manifestations seen over the past ten years. There was arthralgia in 7 cases, vertebral pain in 7 cases and myalgia in 3 cases. Arthritis consisted of a monoarthritis of the ankle in 2 cases and oligoarthritis in 2 cases. There were also 2 cases of lumbar spondylodiscitis and 1 of finger clubbing in the series. The underlying heart disease was a valvular lesion of the left side of the heart in 10 cases out of 11 and the organism isolated by blood culture was a streptococcus in 9 cases and a staphylococcus in 11. We emphasis the need for early diagnosis and appropriate antibiotic therapy, in the absence of which the course may be fatal in the short term, as it was the case in one of our own patients.