Short-Term Results of Early Surgery for Active Infective Endocarditis

Sung, Ki Ick; Park, Pyo Won

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Although there is a controversy on the optimal timing for active infective endocarditis(IE), recently good results of early surgical intervention have been published. Herein, we analyzed the results of surgery for active IE according to the duration of preoperative antibiotic treatment. MATERIAL AND METHOD: Retrospectively, we analyzed 51 patients who underwent operation for active IE at the department of thoracic and cardiovascular surgery of Samsung medical center from Mar. 1995 to Oct. 2001. Male to female ratio was 39:12, mean age of the patients was 44.5+/-17.8 years(range : 13~74). Infected valves were mitral valve in 17(33.3%), aortic valve in 15(29.4%), mitral and aortic valve in 12(23.5), and tricuspid valve in 5(9.8%) cases. Among them, prosthetic valve endocarditis was present in 10(19.6%) cases. Infecting organism was Staphylococcus in 19 (37.3%), Streptococcus in 17(33.3%), Enterococcus in 3(5.9%), fungus in 3(5.9%), and other bacteria in 5(9.8%) cases. Organism was not isolated in 6(11.8%) cases, and two organisms were isolated in 4(7.8%) cases. Dividing these patients into two groups according to the duration of preoperative antibiotic treatment(A: less than 7 days, B: more than 8 days), we compared the surgical results between the two groups. RESULT: There were 16 cases in group A and 35 in group B. Annular reconstruction was performed in 10(62.5%) cases in group A and 10(28.6%) cases in group B, which has statistically significance(p<0.05). There was one early death in group B. Forty nine patients(96.1%) except two were followed up with mean follow-up duration of 28.7+/-23.6 months. Endocarditis was recurred in one in group A, and two in group B. Three late deaths occurred in group B. Recurrence rate and survival were not statistically different between the two groups.
CONCLUSION
Early surgery for active IE showed good results as the result of that which was performed after prolonged antibiotic treatment; therefore, we believe that early surgery for active IE could effectively eradicate the infection.