2009 – VOLUME 38 – Issue 1

Infective endocarditis (IE) is a severe, relatively rare disease responsible for substantial morbidity and mortality dominated by the risk of heart failure and emboli of cardiac origin. During these last years, its epidemiological and microbiological profiles have considerably changed. New data have been published and several classically accepted principles were questioned. This led the experts of different countries to modify their guidelines for prevention of IE. This article in two parts is to review the new data of the literature concerning patients at risk and procedures at risk of provoking an IE as well as to make a synthesis of the recent guidelines of the Société de Pathologie Infectieuse de Langue Française (SPILF 2002) and the American Heart Association (AHA 2007).