Introduction:

Infective endocarditis has not decreased its incidence and mortality in the last 30 years.

Objective:

To characterize patients operated on due to diagnosis of active infective endocarditis.

Method:

A retrospective, descriptive study was carried out, which included 109 patients with a diagnosis of this disease, who underwent surgery at Cardiocentro Ernesto Che Guevara (Cuba), from July 2010 to June 2018. The information was obtained from the medical records and the surgical report.

Results:

Prosthetic valve infective endocarditis was diagnosed in 15 patients (13.8%), but the most frequent was the one related to intracardiac device colonization (51.4%), reason why the most used surgical procedure was the change of the electrical stimulation system. The main surgical indication was the uncontrolled infection in 63 cases (57.8%), followed by heart failure (38 patients; 34.9%) and in 67 cases (61.5%), the blood cultures were negative. The native valve replacement for a mechanical prosthetic valve was performed in 28 patients (25.7%), of which 15 (13.8%) were in mitral position. The replacement of a mechanical prosthetic valve for another with the same characteristics was carried out in 14 (12.8%) cases, 8 (7.3%) of them were mitral. Overall mortality was of 17.4%, more evident in those with left-side prosthetic valve endocarditis (7/15).

Conclusions:

Male gender and age over 60 years old predominated, as well as the presence of vegetations on intracardiac devices, and negative blood cultures. The prosthetic valve endocarditis was significantly associated with mortality.

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