Early surgery for hospital-acquired and community-acquired active infective endocarditis.

Active infective endocarditis (IE) is classified into two groups; hospital acquired IE (HIE) and IE other than HIE, which was defined as community-acquired IE (CIE). Eighty-two patients underwent surgical treatment for active IE. Seventy-one cases were CIE group and eleven were HIE. There were six patients with native valve endocarditis and five cases of prosthetic valve endocarditis in the HIE group. We compared the surgical outcome of both types of active IE retrospectively. The preoperative status of the patients in the HIE group was more critical than that in the CIE group. Streptococcus spp. were the major micro-organisms in the CIE group (39%), while 82% of the HIE cases were caused by Staphylococcus spp. All Staphylococcus organisms in the HIE group were methicillin resistant. There were 10 hospital deaths, three in the CIE group and seven in the HIE group. Operative mortality in the HIE group was significantly higher than in the CIE group (63.6% vs. 4.2%, P<0.001). The outcome of early operation was satisfactory for active CIE, but poor for HIE. These types of active IE should be considered separately.