Whipple's Disease

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Abstract
In their Medical Progress article on Whipple's disease, Fenollar and colleagues (Jan. 4 issue)1 raise important issues regarding culture-negative endocarditis. We report on a 38-year-old-man with a 6-month history of polyarthralgia. He had clubbing of the fingers as well as aortic and mitral regurgitant murmurs. Transesophageal echocardiography showed vegetations on both the mitral and aortic (bicuspid) valves. Multiple blood cultures and routine serologic tests were negative. A species-specific polymerase-chain-reaction (PCR) assay for Tropheryma whipplei and broad-range PCR for 16S ribosomal DNA2 on whole blood were negative.