Forty year review of bacterial endocarditis in infants and children.

From 1950 through 1989 at Tokyo University's Department of Pediatrics, 25 children were treated for bacterial endocarditis. Twenty-two of these patients had previously been diagnosed as suffering from congenital heart disease. Twenty one of the 25 patients had positive blood cultures. Streptococcus viridans was the most common organism isolated, although the incidence of Streptococcus viridans infection has decreased in the last 20 years. In present series only a few post-surgical cases with congenital heart disease occurred. There were three deaths which all occurred prior to 1965.