[Survival of patients with infectious endocarditis in various treatment methods]

The aim of the study was to compare survival of patients with infectious endocarditis (IE) by abuse of intravenous narcotic substances in conservative and combined treatment in acute IE phase. A total of 195 IE patients were examined. 121 of them was treated conservatively, 74 patients received a combined treatment including surgical one. A long-term prognosis was studied by the Kaplan-Meier method. Among drug addicts with IE, the number of survivors in the observation period in early operation in the active IE phase was significantly higher than in the conservative therapy. Long-term survival of drug addicts with IE in combined treatment was also higher: 1-2- and 3-year survival was 85.8, 76.3 and 61.0% against 64.8, 49.0 and 34.2% in conservative treatment, respectively. In non-addicts the differences were weaker: long-term survival in combined treatment was higher than in conservative one only in 5-year survival (74.1 and 41.6%, respectively).