ObjectiveTo evaluate the prognostic impact of urgent cardiac surgery on the prognosis of left-sided infective endocarditis (LSIE) and its relationship to the basal risk of the patient and to the surgical indication.Methods605 patients with LSIE and formal surgical indication were consecutively recruited between 2000 and 2020 among three tertiary centres: 405 underwent surgery during the active phase of the disease and 200 did not despite having indication. The prognostic impact of urgent surgery was evaluated by multivariable analysis and propensity score analysis. We studied the benefit of surgery according to baseline mortality risk defined by the ENDOVAL score and according to surgical indication.ResultsSurgery is an independent predictor of survival in LSIE with surgical indication both by multivariable analysis (OR 0.260, 95% CI 0.162 to 0.416) and propensity score (mortality 40% vs 66%, p<0.001). Its greatest prognostic benefit is seen in patients at highest risk (predicted mortality 80%–100%: OR 0.08, 95% CI 0.021 to 0.299). The benefit of surgery is especially remarkable for uncontrolled infection indication (OR 0.385, 95% CI 0.194 to 0.765), even in combination with heart failure (OR 0.220, 95% CI 0.077 to 0.632).ConclusionsSurgery during active LSIE seems to significantly reduce in-hospital mortality. The higher the risk, the higher the improvement in outcome.

Background Cardiac surgery is required in approximately 50% of patients with left-sided infective endocarditis (IE) being a high-risk procedure specially during active phase of the disease. Purpose To evaluate the impact of cardiac surgery in the in-hospital mortality of left-sided IE. Methods We used a prospective cohort of consecutive patients with definite left-sided IE between 2000 and 2017 (n=1002). A predictive model of in-hospital mortality was derived by adding the variable cardiac surgery to the already published ENDOVAL score. The benefit of cardiac surgery was calculated with the mean difference between the risk of in-hospital mortality considering urgent surgery and considering no surgery for each patient. Results The predictive model showed good discriminative capacity with an area under the ROC curve of 0.861 (95% CI: 0.830 - 0.891) and a good calibration (p-value in the Hosmer-Lemeshow test of 0.353). Figure shows the in-hospital mortality prediction of each patient in case of no-surgery (orange), urgent surgery (yellow) or real decision (blue). Mean reduction of in-hospital mortality risk in case of surgery for patients with a theoretical risk of in-hospital mortality between 0–20% in absence of surgery was 3.2±1.6%. For patients with a theoretical risk between 20–40% in absence of surgery the mean reduction was 8.1±1.1%. For patients with a theoretical risk between 40–60% in absence of surgery the mean reduction was 10.7±0.3%. For patients with a theoretical risk between 60–80% in absence of surgery the mean reduction was 9.7±0.9%. For patients with a theoretical risk between 80–100% in absence of surgery the mean reduction was 4.6±2.1%. Conclusion Urgent cardiac surgery is a protective factor of in-hospital mortality for all patients with left-sided IE but especially for those with intermediate risk. Figure 1 Funding Acknowledgement Type of funding source: Public Institution(s). Main funding source(s): Gerencia Regional de Salud, Junta de Castilla y Leόn

Introduction and objectives The indication for surgery to prevent embolism in infective endocarditis includes four clinical scenarios and three different echocardiographic measurements of the maximal vegetation diameter. These cut-off points are completely arbitrary and not evidence-based. Our hypothesis is that the vegetation diameter is not an appropriate surgical criterium. The goal of the study is to analyze the inter and intra-observer variability in this measurement and to compare the surgical indications agreement based on these parameters. Methods Two trained echocardiographers have measured the maximal vegetation diameter by transesophageal echocardiogram in 67 consecutive patients with definite infective endocarditis in an off-line workstation. The inter- and intra-observer variability was calculated by the interclass correlation coefficient and with the Bland-Altman analysis. The relationship between the strength of agreement for the cut-off points of 10 and 15 mm was also calculated. Results Intra and inter-observer interclass correlation coefficient in the measurement of the maximal longitudinal diameter of the vegetations were 0.872 (0.805–0.917) and 0.757 (0.642–0.839) respectively. The strength of agreement of the intra and inter-observer analysis for the cut-off point of 10 mm were 0.674 (0.485–0.862) and 0.533 (0.327–0.759). For the cut-off point of 15 mm they were 0.696 (0.530–0.862) and 0.475 (0.270–0.679). Conclusions The variability in the measurements of the maximal longitudinal diameter by transesophageal echocardiogram between two experimented echocardiographers is good. Nonetheless, surgical indications based on the cut-off points recommended in the European guidelines would have changed in an unacceptable high proportion of patients. Therefore, we suggest that these indications should be revised in the light of our results. Funding Acknowledgement Type of funding source: None