Surgical repair is necessary for:
- Endocarditis with severe heart failure (cardiac insufficiency).
- Endocarditis with severe valvular insufficiency (occlusive weakness of the heart valves); predominantly frequently affected are the mitral valve in front of the aortic valve and the tricuspid valve
- Endocarditis, which runs uncontrolled under therapy.
- Perivalvular abscesses (encapsulated collections of pus) in the area of the heart valves.
- Fistulas
- Septic emboli
- New-onset AV blockages (cardiac arrhythmias).
- Endocarditis in pacemaker/ICD
Further notes
- In cases of infective endocarditis, involve cardiac surgeons in a timely manner to plan valve replacement as a last resort therapy (last diagnostic option to still make progress in treating the disease). Patients with infective endocarditis are more likely to survive if they receive early surgery. This is the finding of a worldwide international group of researchers (International Collaboration on Endocarditis (ICE)). More than 80% of those operated on early survived the six-month period after surgery, while 31.4% of those not operated on did not.
- The most common germs found were streptococci and staphylococci.
