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Acute Infective Endocarditis

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Critical Care Infectious Diseases Textbook

Abstract

According to classical definitions from the pre-antibiotic era, infective endocarditis (IE) was divided by the acuity of presenting symptoms and the rapidity of clinical evolution toward the anticipated lethal outcome. Patients with “acute” endocarditis had an abrupt onset and progression to death in less than six weeks. Patients with slowly developing symptoms were subdivided into categories of “subacute” or “chronic” endocarditis associated with a slowly progressing but also uniformly fatal illness lasting from several months to over two years [1]. The clinical features of acute endocarditis often included a hectic, rapidly deteriorating clinical course and dramatically invasive infection with destruction of heart valves and embolic complications early in the disease [2]. Before the introduction of echocardiography, about half of all IE cases were diagnosed only at autopsy [3].

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Authors
  1. Jason L. Sanchez
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  2. Russell Little
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Hospital Universitari Joan XXIII, Tarragona, Spain

    Jordi Rello M.D., Ph.D.

  2. University Rovira & Virgili, Tarragona, Spain

    Jordi Rello M.D., Ph.D.

  3. Corporacio Sanitaria Parc Tauli, Sabadell, Barcelona, Spain

    Jordi Valles M.D., Ph.D.

  4. Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri, USA

    Marin H. Kollef M.D.

  5. Barnes-Jewish Hospital, St. Louis, Missouri, USA

    Marin H. Kollef M.D.

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Sanchez, J.L., Little, R. (2001). Acute Infective Endocarditis. In: Rello, J., Valles, J., Kollef, M.H. (eds) Critical Care Infectious Diseases Textbook. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-1679-8_25

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-1679-8_25

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4613-5674-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4615-1679-8

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