Paper I
Question
What is the most probable diagnosis
Answer
- [x] a) infective endocarditis
The combination of options across this MCQ set — Modified Duke criteria (the standard diagnostic criteria specifically for infective endocarditis), persistently positive blood cultures, Coxiella burnetii (a classical cause of culture-negative endocarditis), and viridans streptococci (the most common causative organism in subacute native-valve endocarditis) — is diagnostically specific to infective endocarditis. Congestive cardiac failure, rheumatic heart disease, and haemolytic anaemia do not fit this specific combination of diagnostic criteria and microbiological findings.