[Infective endocarditis. Study of 83 cases at the Hospital da Santa Casa de São Paulo]

To analyse clinical aspects, diagnosis and treatment of infective endocarditis (IE), in order to guide medical procedures and indicate the surgical treatment.

83 patients were submitted to clinical treatment of IE between January 1980 and December 1987; clinical aspects, laboratory and pathologic-anatomy findings, the site of infection and the entrance of micro-organism were studied.

37 (44.6%) patients were males. Fever was present in 75 (90.4%) cases, cardiac murmur in 76 (91.5%), splenomegaly in 28 (33.7%) and heart failure (III and IV) in 32 (39.8%) patients. Blood culture was positive in 55.5%; staphylococcus 50% of blood cultures; anemia was present in 66 cases (79.5%) and high serum mucoprotein in 58 (92%); echocardiography was 85.7% positive. The mortality was 39.76%; congestive heart failure was the main cause of death; 78.1% of these ones occurred in the first 15 days of antibiotic-therapy. The mitral valve was the one most impaired and the most frequent entrance of micro-organisms in oropharynx.

Congestive heart failure, sepsis and systemic embolisms were the main complications that led the patient to death in course of IE, usually before 15 days of antibiotic-therapy. In these cases, we may hypothesize that prompt surgical treatment could have diminished the mortality of IE.