Does total removal of infected hardware achieve complete recovery in patients with pacemaker endocarditis?
In patients with pacemaker endocarditis, total removal of the infected hardware is necessary to achieve complete recovery.
The authors analyzed the data of seven patients who had undergone open heart surgery because of pacemaker endocarditis in the past 4 years. Repeated surgical interventions on the pacemaker system were found to be the most common predisposing factors. Staphylococcus aureus and Staphylococcus epidermidis were the most common causative organisms. Two-dimensional echocardiography was important in the diagnosis of cases with atypical clinical picture and negative blood cultures. We concluded that: (1) any pacemaker patient with fever should be considered to have a pacemaker endocarditis; (2) all of these patients should be examined by two-dimensional echocardiography; and (3) the total removal of the infected hardware seems to be the only way to achieve complete recovery.
BÖHM et al. (Mon,) studied this question.