Immunization for Prevention of Infective Endocarditis

Immunization has been used for many years to prevent certain infectious diseases. Often it is targeted to populations at increased risk of a particular infection. Patients at increased risk of infective endocarditis can be identified and would be eligible candidates for immunization if vaccines were available to prevent common bacterial causes of infective endocarditis. The idea of using preventive therapy among patients at increased risk of infective endocarditis is not novel, and recommendations for use of antibiotics prior to performing certain invasive procedures have been in place for years. Findings from immunization experiments using animal models of experimental endocarditis support the notion that vaccine development is appropriate for study in humans, and these findings are reviewed in this paper.