Letter to Editor: Microorganisms and valve tissue/ Demonstration of Chlamydophila pneumoniae, Mycoplasma pneumoniae, Cytomegalovirus, and Epstein-Barr virus in atherosclerotic coronary arteries, nonrheumatic calcific aortic and rheumatic stenotic mitral valves by polymerase chain reaction

Dear Editor, We read with great interest the article by Bayram et al. (1) regarding the presence of bacterial and viral pathogens in coronary and valve specimens determined by means of polymerase chain reaction method. The authors sought to evaluate the presence of two bacterial (C. pneumoniae and M. pneumoniae) and two viral (CMV and EBV) pathogens in heart valves extracted during surgery. They found out that C. pneumoniae, M. pneumoniae, and CMV were detected in patients with stenotic aortic and mitral valves and in patients with coronary atherosclerosis with similar frequencies. The most striking findings for us are the relatively high frequency of C. pneumoniae, M. pneumoniae and CMV in mitral valve tissue (21%, 7%, and 12% respectively). The underlying mechanism and the progression of chronic rheumatic valve disease are remained to be a dilemma in regard to pathophysiologic insight.