Systematic echocardiography in patients with hematological malignancies and Gram-positive bacteremia, is it really needed?

Key Points

• To assess the necessity of echocardiography in patients with hematological malignancies and Gram-positive bacteremia.
• Analyzed prevalence of infective endocarditis (IE) in hematologic patients with Gram-positive cocci (GPC) bacteremia.
• Conducted echocardiographic examinations to detect cases of IE.
• Compared IE prevalence to a general hospital cohort.
• IE prevalence was very low at 1.1% among hematologic patients with GPC bacteremia.
• Echocardiography identified IE in only 2.5% of cases examined.
• All detected IE cases exhibited high-risk features like persistent bacteremia.