Vulnerable and Neglected Endocarditis Patients; Insights from the Brandenburg Endocarditis Registry (B.E.R.)

All articles of this category (opens in new window) Background: Endocarditis patients with drug or alcohol abuse, immunosuppression, or dialysis dependence represent a particularly vulnerable group. Prospective data on these patients are limited. We investigated baseline, pathogens, course, outcome, and prophylaxis in this subgroup from our current prospective multicenter endocarditis registry. Methods: Among 657 endocarditis patients, 3.1% were drug addicts (Euroscore II (ESII) 10.3%), 10.9% alcoholics (ESII 11.6%), 7% required dialysis (ESII 20.9%), and 27.9% immunosuppressed (ESII 16.1%). Results: Mortality was highest among immunosuppressed patients (33.8%), followed by drug addicts (31.2%) and dialysis patients (29.7%), all significantly higher than in the control cohort without these conditions (24.7%, p < 0.001). Dialysis patients showed the highest rate of redo-surgery (32.4%), the highest proportion of early endocarditis (