[Surgical treatment for infective endocarditis]

Surgery for infective endocarditis (IE) is technically demanding, especially the one for active IE.

Operations were performed in 21 patients with a mean age of 52.2 +/- 18.8 years. Fifteen patients were male, and 6 were female. There were 15 patients with active IE and 6 patients with healed IE. Isolated pathogens were Streptococcus in 8 cases, Staphylococcus in 3, and Enterococcus in 2. Two patients had prosthetic valve endocarditis. When the lesions affected the aortic valve, aortic valve replacement (AVR) was performed. When the lesions affected the mitral or tricuspid valves, valve repair was the treatment of choice.

Six patients underwent AVR and 15 patients underwent a mitral valve operation (mitral valve repair in 13, replacement in 2). In 2 patients, mitral valve repair was changed to replacement, judged by intraoperative transesophageal echocardiogram. One patient underwent isolated tricuspid valve repair. Total survival and survival free of reoperation at 45 months was 95.2%. The grade of mitral regurgitation (MR) decreased from 3.7 +/- 0.1 to 0.2 +/- 0.1, and that of tricuspid valve regurgitation (TR) recovered from 3.5 +/- 0.5 to 1.0 +/- 1.0 at 21 +/- 15 months after the operation.

Valve repair operations were useful in the mitral and tricuspid valve positions, even in the presence of active IE. Both mechanical valve and bioprosthesis showed good results after AVR for IE.