Journal of Cardiac Surgery | 2021
Lemierre–like syndrome and infective endocarditis: A triumph of eponyms
Abstract
The use of medical eponyms is widespread across hospital wards and medical school halls worldwide, and it clearly indicates that the history of medicine is much more than an arid catalogue of discoveries. It is estimated that more than 8000 medical eponyms exist, and a certain degree of debate has been recently generated on eponyms being potentially archaic and scientifically misleading despite being of undoubted fascination as they embed different medical traditions and cultures. At the intersection of otolaryngology, infectious disease and vascular surgery, Lemierre Syndrome (LS) was first described by Andre Lemierre in 1936 as “anaerobic postanginal sepsis,” consisting of septic thrombophlebitis of the internal jugular vein secondary to uncontrolled oropharyngeal infection by Fusobacterium species. In this issue of the Journal, Morishige and colleagues reported the case of an uncommon variant of this rare syndromic disease, which has an annual incidence of 3.6 cases per million people in its classic presentation. The Authors presented a case which stood out under multiple standpoints: