Abstract
Infective endocarditis (IE) continues to have high rates of adverse
outcomes, despite recent advances in diagnosis and management. Although
the use of computer tomography and nuclear imaging appears to be
increasing, echocardiography, widely available in most centers, is the
recommended initial modality of choice to diagnose and consequently
guide the management of IE in a timely-dependent fashion.
Echocardiographic imaging should be performed as soon as the IE
diagnosis is suspected. Several factors may delay diagnosis, for example
echocardiography findings may be negative early in the disease course.
Thus, repeated echocardiography is recommended in patients with negative
initial echocardiography if high suspicion for IE persists, in patients
at high risk. However systematic echocardiographic screening should not
be utilized as a common tool for fever, but only in the presence of a
reasonable clinical suspicion of IE. It may increase the risk of false
positive rates of patients requiring IE therapy or may exacerbate
diagnostic uncertainty about subtle findings. Considering the complexity
of the disease, the echocardiographic proper use should be increasingly
time-efficient and focused on the correct identification of IE lesions
and associated complications. The path to identify patients who need
surgery passes through an echocardiographic skill ensuring the
identification of the cardiac anatomical structures and their
involvement on the destructive infective extension. We pointed out the
role of echocardiography focused on the correct identification of IE
distinctive lesions and the associated complications, as part of a
diagnostic strategy, within an integrated multimodality imaging, managed
by an “endocarditis team”.