Infective endocarditis caused by Chaetomium globosum

Chaetomium globosum is a dematiaceous, filamentous fungus belonging to the large genus saprobic as-comycetes and is rarely involved in human infection. We present the case of a 25-year-old man undergo-ing tricuspid valve replacement due to recurrent prosthetic ring endocarditis. Initially, it was considered culture-negative endocarditis; however, the diagnosis of Chaetomium globosum could only be provided by DNA isolation of the mold isolate grown in culture and the valve tissue samples taken from the pa-tient. This report describes the first documented tricuspid endocarditis caused by Chaetomium species and discusses the importance of molecular tools to enhance the diagnostic process in culture-negative endocarditis, especially for fastidious and nonculturable microorganisms. (c) 2022 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.