Patient selection: patient with Q fever
Risk factors for chronic disease:
(1) older age (mean age 64, with mean minus 1 SD = 50 years)
(2) cardiac valve surgery
(3) vascular prosthesis
(4) arterial aneurysm
(5) renal insufficiency
A patient with an intra-abdominal aortic aneurysm may have several of these risk factors.
Additional risk factors from the univariate analysis:
(1) other vascular surgery
(2) peripheral arterial disease (which often would be associated with renal insufficiency)
(3) valvulopathy or valvular disease
(4) ischemic heart disease
(5) pacemaker
(6) risk factors for ischemic heart disease (arterial hypertension, dyslipidemia, diabetes)
(7) nonhematologic malignancy
(8) immunosuppression
(9) therapy with a proton pump inhibitor
(10) therapy with a statin
(11) therapy with clopidogrel
(12) other cardiac disease (atrial fibrillation, congestive heart failure, pericarditis, bradycardia, ischemic cardiomyopathy, let ventricular hypertrophy)
Adequate therapy of acute Q fever (10 to 14 days of doxycycline therapy) reduced the risk of chronic Q fever in the univariate analysis.
