Introduction:

infective endocarditis is a fatal disease. Despite improvements in its management, it is still associated with high mortality rate and severe complications.

Objective:

to characterize patients diagnosed with infective endocarditis.

Methods:

a descriptive, cross-sectional and retrospective study was conducted at Celia Sanchez Manduley Clinical-surgical Teaching Hospital, in the period from January 2015 to December 2020. The study population comprised 34 patients diagnosed according to the modified Duke criteria. The variables analyzed were: age, sex, affected valve, and location, status at discharge, clinical manifestations and complementary examinations performed. Descriptive statistics was applied to calculate absolute frequency, arithmetic mean with standard deviation and percentage calculation. Quantitative variables were compared according to Student's t test.

Results:

the most affected age group was 61 - 70, with no differences between sexes. Cases associated with intracardiac devices prevailed. Hemoglobin (105,2g/dL DE±13,0), leukogram (16,8mmol/L DE±0,2), C-reactive protein (96,2mg/L DE±3.2), erythrocyte sedimentation rate (101,0 mm/h DE±20,1), and creatinine (149,0 mmol/L DE±24,3) were determined. In 59 % of the cases no causative agent could be determined.

Conclusions:

infective endocarditis is more frequent in older adults without distinction of sex. Cases with Intracardiac devices predominate, most of them presenting elevated values of leukogram, erythrocyte sedimentation, creatinine and C-reactive protein. Blood cultures were negative in most cases.

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