Clinical value and limitations of echocardiography. Its use in the study of patients with infectious endocarditis.

The echocardiographic laboratory is frequently requested to "rule out" endocarditis. The sensitivity of echocardiography in detecting vegetations has been well studied; the specificity is not known, but few false-positive studies have been reported, and the clinical implications of the study are controversial. This review summarizes the state of the art of the echocardiographic evaluation of patients with suspected clinical endocarditis.