[Surgical treatment of infective endocarditis]

From 1981 to 1996, 48 consecutive patients, aged range 1 to 72 years, underwent surgical treatment for infective endocarditis. The infection was in the aortic valve in 10 patients, the mitral valve in 17, the aortic and mitral valves in 7, mixed aortic, mitral and tricuspid valves in one, the tricuspid valve in 9, the pulmonary valve in 3, and the other in 2, thirty-seven patients had native valve endocarditis (NVE) of which 22 cases were in the active stage. Seven cases had active prosthetic valve endocarditis (PVE) and 4 had VSD patch infection. The overall hospital mortality rate was 14.6% (7/48). The hospital mortality rate of NVE was 2.7% (1/37) and that of active NVE was 4.5% (1/22). That of PVE was 71.4% (5/7) and one of 4 cases with VSD patch infection was lost, so the mortality rate of the prosthetic material infection was 54.5% (6/11). Only 1 patient required reoperation for persistent infection. There were 2 late deaths caused by noncardiac disease. Thirty-nine of the total IE patients are now survived. These data demonstrate excellent results in patient with NVE undergoing the surgical treatment at the early phase, and support the premise that patients with active PVE should have also early surgical intervention.