[Endocarditis and congenital heart disease in the adult]

The prevalence of congenital cardiopathy is approximately 8% of live births, and 80 to 85% of patients reach adulthood thanks to the progress in the management of even complex malformations. Congenital cardiopathies represent 10 to 18% of adulthood cardiopathies complicated by infectious endocarditis, and in the specialist units for adolescent and adult congenital cardiac patients, 5% of admissions are provoked by endocarditis. The majority of malformations have a risk of infected graft, but patients who have a complex cyanogenic cardiopathy or an operated cardiopathy requiring insertion of prosthetic material, and those who have already had previous episodes of endocarditis are at a very high risk. Longitudinal studies show evolution of the responsible microbes, with an increase of the HACEK group; nevertheless, the streptococci and staphylococci remain uppermost. Diagnosis relies on the classic Duke University criteria but Doppler echocardiography is sometimes difficult to interpret in complex malformations or extra-cardiac sites of infection, and in 6 to 11% of cases the microbe is not identified. Infectious endocarditis remains a particularly serious complication: 50% of patients have aggravation of their cardiopathy and 20 to 30% require surgery; however the mortality has fallen by 20% to a little less than 5% in the most recent series. It is vital that patient education should be pursued even if, in certain circumstances, prophylaxis is not always either possible or effective....