Prosthetic Valve Endocarditis

Abstract

Prosthetic valve infective endocarditis (PVE) remains a devastating complication of valve replacement resulting in valvular and paravalvular destruction leading to heart failure, embolism, sepsis and ultimately death. Surgical management is frequently required for PVE due to the resistant nature of infection of prosthetic materials and the fact that infection more commonly extends beyond the affected valve proper, resulting in abscess and fistula formation. The mainstay of PVE surgery is complete debridement of infective materials and repair or replacement of all damaged structures including any abscess or fistulous connections and re-replacement of valves. This chapter provides an overview of prosthetic valve endocarditis along with a review of our surgical approach to aortic, mitral and tricuspid prosthetic valve infective endocarditis with the use of demonstrative cases.