Surgical management of endocarditis in drug addicts and long-term results

From 1977 to May 1989, 57 successive patients who were known drug addicts with endocarditis were operated on at the Weiler Division of Montefiore Medical Center and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. The most common lesion was aortic endocarditis. Thirty day in hospital mortality was 9%. Recurrent infection did not occur in the preAIDS era. Since the advent of HIV positive patients, failure of antibiotics to control the infection preoperatively has been seen and carries with it a severe risk of recurrent and fatal postoperative sepsis. The long-term survival was, at about 10% over 5-10 years, just good enough to warrant continued efforts in this very difficult group of patients.