Early Surgery for Infective Endocarditis Complicated With Neurologic Injury

To estimate the association between early surgery and the risk of mortality in patients with left-sided infective endocarditis in the context of stroke.

Retrospective cohort study.

This study was a multiinstitution study based on the Chang Gung Research Database, which contains electronic medical records from 7 hospitals in northern and southern Taiwan; these include 2 medical centers, 2 regional hospitals, and 3 district hospitals.

Patients with active left-sided infective endocarditis who underwent valve surgery between September 2002 and December 2018.

The authors divided patients into 2 groups, with versus without preoperative neurologic complications, had undergone early (within 7 d) or later surgery, and with brain ischemia or hemorrhage.

Three hundred ninety-two patients with a median time from diagnosis to surgery of 6 days were included. No significant differences in postoperative stroke, in-hospital mortality, or follow-up outcomes were observed between the patients with and without neurologic complications. Among the patients with preoperative neurologic complications, patients who underwent early surgery had a lower 30-day postoperative mortality rate (13.1% v 25.8%; hazard ratio, 0.21; 95% CI 0.07-0.67). In the subgroup analysis of the comparison between brain ischemia and hemorrhage groups, there was no significant between-group difference in the in-hospital outcomes or outcomes after discharge.

Early cardiac surgery may be associated with more favorable clinical outcomes in patients with preoperative neurologic complications. Thus, preoperative neurologic complications should not delay surgical interventions.