Background: We retrospectively analyzed the results of operations done for culture-negative aortic infective endocarditis at a single center over a period of 26 years.
Methods: From June 1985 to January 2011, we operated on 82 patients with infective endocarditis of the aortic valve for which the results of culture were negative. Sixty-five of the patients (79.3%) were male and the patients' mean age was 38.0±14.4 years (range, 9 to 73 years). Nineteen of the patients (23.2%) had a history of previous cardiac surgery, and 16 of the patients (19.5%) had endocarditis of a prosthetic valve. Two patients (2.4%) had conduction blocks. The mean duration of follow-up was 7.1±4.3 years (range, 0.1 to 16.9 years), yielding a total of 477.0 patient-years for the study population.
Results: One hundred and thirty-eight procedures were done on the 82 patients in the study. The most common procedure was aortic valve replacement, which was done on 67 patients (81.7%). Thirty-nine patients (47.6%) had concomitant procedures done on the mitral valve. In-hospital death occurred in 14 patients (17.1%). Postoperatively, 17 patients (20.7%) had a low cardiac output and 9 patients (11.0%) had heart block, of whom 3 required implantation of a permanent pacemaker. The actuarial rate of survival of the patient population at 1, 5, 10, and 15 years was 92.5%±3.2%, 85.6%±4.5%, 82.5±5.3%, and 72.2±10.7% respectively.
Conclusions: Culture-negative infective endocarditis is a major problem in the diagnosis and treatment of a significant proportion of cases of endocarditis. Most of the affected patients are in a healed state, which could be a cause of negative culture results. In-hospital mortality in patients with culture-negative infective aortic endocarditis is associated with a history of previous cardiac surgery, whereas long-term mortality in this patient population is associated with nonaortic procedures.
Copyright © 2012 The Society of Thoracic Surgeons. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.