Fungal Endocarditis: A Case Report

Fungal endocarditis is a rare disease, and it is associated with severe complications and poor prognosis despite combined clinical and surgical treatment. Although Candida albicans (C. albicans) is the most common etiological agent of this severe form of endocarditis, Candida parapsilosis (C. parapsilosis) is the most common non-albicans causative species. It occurs mostly in patients with predisposing risk factors, and the rarity of this disease demands a high index of suspicion; the diagnosis must be vigilantly pursued by echocardiography and multiple blood cultures. The past few decades have witnessed a rise in the incidence of this disease, mainly due to improvements in the diagnostic approach. We report the case of a 63-year-old man with no previous medical history of cardiac disease and no risk factors who was diagnosed with fungal endocarditis due to C. parapsilosis without fungemia. This report illustrates a rare case of fungal endocarditis in a patient with no risk factors and highlights the challenges encountered in the diagnosis, along with complications and predictors of poor prognosis.