Infective endocarditis: a paradigm in clinical practice

Abstract

Infective endocarditis is an infectious disease that is severe and uncommon, it affects the damaged endocardium in patients with bacteremia or fungemia, therefore bacteria colonize the thrombus that is forming and they start to be covered up by detritus, fibrine, and platelets, among others, this is the reason why the immunological humoral response does not detect it at early stages, there are also predisponent risks factors which allow microorganism growth on the endocardium surface, specifically on cardiac valves surface. The objective of this study is to analyze current data on regard of infective endocarditis between 2020 and 2022. A systematic review was made from 44 papers after an initial selection of 66 research using searchers such as Pubmed, Medscape, Scielo, and Google Scholar, associated with “Endocartiditis Infecciosa” and “Infective Endocarditis”. Gram-positive bacteria were the most frequent etiological causes of infective endocarditis, and its diagnosis is depending on the clinical and paraclinical investigation, this is the reason why the diagnosis is based on modified Duke criteria. The imaging diagnosis gold standard is the transesophageal echocardiogram with the highest sensibility, where the vegetation can be demonstrated, and we conclude that an early diagnosis decreases the mortality rate in these patients, where medical and/or surgical treatment can be implemented.