In a patient with mitral-aortic native-valve Streptococcus oralis endocarditis, daptomycin concentrations in aortic and mitral valves were 8.6 and 30.8 g/g, respectively, and 26 g/g in the mitral vegetation. In the case of porcine-aortic-valve Staphylococcus epidermidis endocarditis, the daptomycin concentrations were 53.1 g/g in the valve and 18.1 g/g in perivalvular tissues. Daptomycin achieved apparently adequate tissue concentrations. S. epidermidis was eradicated, whereas Streptococcus oralis persisted, and its daptomycin MIC displayed a 4-fold increase.
Daptomycin concentrations were measured in plasma, valve tissues, and vegetations obtained from 2 patients with bacterial endocarditis requiring surgery. Diagnosis of endocarditis was done according to the Duke criteria (1). The blood culture system used was Bactec 9240 (Becton, Dickinson, Milano, Italy). Tissues and vegetations were cultured directly on solid media (chocolate agar, MacConkey agar, mannitol salt agar, and Sabouraud agar). Microorganisms were identified by an automated system (API, Bio-Merieux, Marcy L'Etoile, France).Daptomycin susceptibility was determined by the Etest method (AB-Biodisk, Solna, Sweden). Resistance phenotype was classified according to the breakpoints indicated by the European Committee on Antimicrobial Susceptibility Testing (EUCAST) (2).Daptomycin (dose range, 500 to 700 mg/day) was administered intravenously over a 2-min period. Blood samples for the measurement of minimum and maximum drug plasma concentrations (C min and C max , respectively) were collected shortly before and 30 min after drug administration. Every plasma sample (100 l) was added with methanol (200 l) and centrifuged, and the clear supernatant was analyzed. A validated high-performance liquid chromatographic (HPLC) method was applied to measure plasma concentrations of daptomycin (3). A target value of a C max /MIC ratio of Ͼ100 or a C max of Ͼ60 mg/liter was used to predict efficacy (4), and a C min of Ͼ24 mg/liter was considered predictive of toxicity (5).Portions of surgically removed valve tissues and mitral vegetation were weighted and disrupted in cold phosphate-buffered saline (500 l/sample) using a refrigerated ground-glass pestle. Homogenized samples were then collected in Eppendorf tubes and centrifuged for 15 min at 12,000 rpm and 4°C (Sigma 1K15 centrifuge). For every sample, clear supernatant (100 l) was processed as described above for plasma samples and finally analyzed using the available HPLC method (3).A 61-year-old male (body weight, 72 kg) was diagnosed with a mitro-aortic native-valve Streptococcus oralis endocarditis. Transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) revealed two vegetations on the mitral (25 by 12 mm) and aortic (8 by 6 mm) valves, respectively. Daptomycin (500 mg/day intravenously [IV]) was empirically started and continued because of its favorable Streptococcus oralis MIC (0.094 mg/liter). Daptomycin C max and C min at day 5 were 36.6 and 8.5 mg/liter, respectively. The daily dose of daptomycin was increased to 700 mg on da...