© 2003 by BMJ Publishing Group & British Cardiac Society
EDITORIAL
Management of prosthetic valve endocarditis: a clinical challenge
Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
Dr Pilar Tornos, Servei de Cardiologia, Hospital Vall d’Hebron, Paseo Vall d’Hebron 119-129, 08035 Barcelona, Spain;
ptornostm@meditex.es
The decision over whether to treat prosthetic valve endocarditis medically or surgically continues to challenge clinicians
Keywords: prosthetic valve endocarditis; transoesophageal echocardiography
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
Prosthetic valve endocarditis (PVE) is a very serious disease. PVE is usually classified as early PVE (that is, acquired perioperatively), and late PVE (resulting from infections unrelated to the valve operation). Early PVE has a much worse prognosis than late PVE. Differences in infective organisms and in the clinical setting explain the dismal prognosis in early PVE and the almost universal need for surgical treatment in this type of PVE. PVE is an uncommon disease, but its frequency seems to be increasing, ranging from 0.1–2.3 per patient-year.1 This increased frequency occurs in late cases because preoperative antibiotic prophylaxis and improved manipulation both during the operation and in the postoperative period have significantly contributed to a decrease in the number of early PVE cases.
Transoesophageal echocardiography is an extremely useful diagnostic tool in PVE because it allows early recognition of vegetations that could not be visualised by transthoracic echocardiography; it is
CiteULike 
Complore 
Connotea 
Del.icio.us 
Digg 
Reddit 
Technorati What's this?
This article has been cited by other articles:
-
Lopes, S., Calvinho, P., de Oliveira, F., Antunes, M.
(2007). Allograft aortic root replacement in complex prosthetic endocarditis. Eur. J. Cardiothorac. Surg.
32: 126-130
[Abstract] [Full Text] -
Vassalos, A., Dancer, S.J., MacArthur, K.J.D.
(2004). Polymerase chain reaction diagnosis in culture-negative prosthetic valve methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus endocarditis in a patient with chronic liver disease. ICVTS
3: 240-242
[Abstract] [Full Text]
- Full Text
- Full Text (PDF)
- Submit a response
- Alert me when this article is cited
- Alert me when eLetters are posted
- Alert me if a correction is posted
- Citation Map
Services
- Email this link to a friend
- Similar articles in this journal
- Similar articles in PubMed
- Add article to my folders
- Download to citation manager
- Request Permissions
Citing Articles
Google Scholar
PubMed
Topic Collections
Bookmark with
Register for free content
The full back archive is now available for all BMJ Journals. Institutional subscribers may access the entire archive as part of their subscription. Personal subscribers will also have access to all content when logged in. Non-subscribers who register have free access to all articles published before 2006 right back to volume 1 issue 1. Register here to access the free archive of all BMJ Journals.
Don't forget to sign up for content alerts so you keep up to date with all the articles as they are published.
