Warning that drug use can cause heart valve disease

  In recent years, due to the rise in the number of drug users in China, there has been an increase in the number of patients infected with bacterial endocarditis due to the use of unclean intravenous injection methods, which produce redundancy or perforation in the tricuspid valve of the heart, resulting in tricuspid valve closure insufficiency. As a result of the dislodgement of the flab, pulmonary embolism can occur, which can lead to fever, chest tightness, shortness of breath, cough, hemoptysis, and hemorrhagic effusion in the chest cavity as well as multiple organ function problems such as liver and kidney, and in severe cases, right heart failure and death. Most of these patients will conceal their drug use history, so that physicians often fail to control the disease due to symptomatic treatment of other clinical manifestations when they are seen. The Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery at Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hospital of Sun Yat-Sen University in Guangzhou has treated more than a dozen such patients in recent years, all of whom initially received anti-inflammatory treatment as pulmonary infections, but failed to control their symptoms, and their conditions worsened to the point where their lives were in danger, and their relatives were even more distraught. When the patient was diagnosed with infective endocarditis causing tricuspid valve lesions and underwent surgical reconstruction or valve replacement, the heart failure was immediately controlled and quickly improved, the pulmonary infection subsided, and the patient was quickly discharged from the hospital.  According to Prof. Xiong Lihua, infective endocarditis causing tricuspid valve lesion, heart failure symptoms can be dramatically aggravated in a short period of time, and any symptomatic treatment is difficult to improve the symptoms, so once diagnosed, surgery should be performed immediately to avoid delaying the disease.  Professor Xiong also advised those who are addicted to this path to clean up their act and realize that drug use not only endangers their bodies and minds, but also imposes a heavy burden on their families and society.