RT Book, Section A1 Shiber, Joseph R. A2 Farcy, David A. A2 Chiu, William C. A2 Marshall, John P. A2 Osborn, Tiffany M. SR Print(0) ID 1135703054 T1 Infectious Endocarditis T2 Critical Care Emergency Medicine, 2e YR 2016 FD 2016 PB McGraw-Hill Education PP New York, NY SN 9780071838764 LK accessemergencymedicine.mhmedical.com/content.aspx?aid=1135703054 RD 2024/03/28 AB Endocarditis, inflammation of the endocardial surface of the heart, can have numerous etiologies, including mechanical irritation, neoplastic, autoimmune, or infectious diseases.1–4 This chapter will focus on the infectious causes, which are typically bacteria, mycobacteria, and fungi. Although the cardiac valves are most commonly involved, the mural endocardium, septal defects, chordae tendineae, and even intracardiac medical equipment (pacemaker/defibrillator leads or septal occluder devices) can also be sites of infection.1–6 Infectious endocarditis (IE) has an incidence of 3.6/100,000 per year and accounts for 1/1,000 hospital admissions in the United States. There is a 2:1 male to female ratio, with current overall inpatient mortality between 11% and 26%, although this figure may be drastically different for the various subsets of IE patients.1,3,7 The incidence and mortality of IE has not changed over the last 30 years.8