A 28-year trend of infective endocarditis associated with congenital heart diseases: A single institute experience

BACKGROUND: Infective endocarditis (IE) is still one of the major complications of congenital heart disease and, therefore, prevention has always been an important issue. But there has been no large scale investigation of IE in Japan. METHODS: Clinical and microbiological features in 183 patients with congenital heart diseases complicated with infective endocarditis (IE), which were treated in our institute in the last 28 years, were reviewed. RESULT: During the period, the age distribution of the patients shifted to an older age; 80% were older than 15 years in the latest 7 year period. In the underlying diseases more complex conditions increased, such as the post Rastelli operation. Dental or oral diseases were the major preceding events and Streptococcus was the major pathogen throughout the study periods in the data. CONCLUSION: The result indicates the importance of continuing education for the prevention of IE and oral hygiene especially in adult patients with a risk for IE.