Drug Fever in an Elderly Patient After Pacemaker Implantation

Pacemaker implantation-related infective endocarditis is an uncommon, but serious complication. The estimated incidence of infection after permanent endocardial pacemaker implantation varies from 0.2% to 3%. Infective endocarditis shows a mortality rate of 30% to 35%. Conservative medical treatment without removing the pacemaker is prone to failure, and reinfection rates of 51% to 77% have been noted in patients whose pacemaker systems become infected. Therefore, diagnosis of the primary infection is particularly important because surgical removal of the pacemaker system is usually required for its treatment. We describe here an 80-year-old woman who had drug fever that could have been misdiagnosed as infective endocarditis after pacemaker implantation.