Bioprosthetic valve endocarditis: factors affecting bad outcome.

Prosthetic valve endocarditis (PVE) remains an uncommon but serious complication of cardiac valve replacement. We analysed several risk factors (active or healed, early or late endocarditis, congestive heart failure, arterial emboli etc.) in order to identify the factors which may predict bad outcome. The overall mortality rate was 46.8% (15/32 patients). There was a significantly higher mortality rate in patients with early endocarditis (80%) than in those with late endocarditis (38%) (p less than 0.01). In the group of patients who underwent reoperation, the mortality rate was higher in those with active endocarditis (70%) than in those with healed endocarditis (28.5%) (p less than 0.05). We believe that combined medical and surgical treatment is the best management for bioprosthetic valve endocarditis, with the institution of appropriate preoperative antibiotic therapy, to attempt to achieve sterilization.