Cardiology Letters 2026, 35(3):138-145

Infective endocarditis - The 16-year experience of one centre

Peter Snopek^{1, 2}, Jozef Hasilla^{1, 2}, Jakub Benko^{1, 3}

¹ Kardiologická klinika FN Nitra

² Fakulta sociálnych vied a zdravotníctva, Univerzita Konštatína Filozofa, Nitra

³ I. interná klinika, Univerzitná nemocnica Martin, Slovenská republika

Background: Infective endocarditis (IE) is a serious disease, the incidence and mortality of which remain high despite advances in medicine. We decided to investigate its etiology, echocardiographic findings, comorbidities, complications, and their impact on mortality in a group of patients hospitalized for infective endocarditis (IE) at the Cardiology Department of the University Hospital Nitra from 1. 1. 2008 to 31. 12. 2023.

Methodology: Retrospective analysis of patients hospitalized for IE at the Cardiology Department of the University Hospital Nitra from January 1, 2008, to December 31, 2023.

Results: During the 16-year follow-up, 170 patients (118 men and 52 women) were hospitalized for IE. Patients aged 46-65 years were the largest group (62 patients). The most common comorbidity was arterial hypertension (52%), and the most common initial symptom was fever (63%). IE of the mitral and aortic valves prevailed (153 patients); the mitral valve was most frequently affected (65 patients), and staphylococci were most frequently responsible for IE (48 patients). 33 patients (19.4%) underwent cardiac surgery. Hospital mortality was 10.6%, 30-day 15.3% and annual 24.1%. Multivariate Cox regression-analysis confirmed heart failure (HF) as the strongest independent statistically significant predictor of patient death regardless of whether it was in-hospital, monthly, annual, or 16-year mortality. Diabetes mellitus (DM), age, and embolic complications had a similar negative impact on survival, but multivariate regression did not confirm their statistical significance, regardless of whether mortality was in-hospital, monthly, annual, or 16-year.

Conclusion: Middle-aged men with left-sided valve disease were hospitalized more frequently for IE. The most common causative agent was staphylococci; in-hospital mortality was slightly lower than reported in the literature (13-26% in developed countries). We identified SZ as the strongest statistically significant predictor of death.

Keywords: infective endocarditis; etiological agent; complications; cardiac surgery; mortality

Published: August 1, 2026  Show citation