Are pathogenic intestinal bacteria present in stool specimens from patients with chronic heart failure

Abstract It has been reported that patients with chronic heart failure exhibit an intestinal overgrowth of primary gut bacterial pathogens, such as Shigella spp., Salmonella , spp. Campylobacter spp. and Yersinia enterocolitica . We failed to reproduce these findings in a cohort of 39 patients admitted to the hospital with decompensated heart failure by means of conventional stool bacterial cultures and a multiplexed PCR assay.