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Infective endocarditis

Blood cultures before antibiotics, the Duke-ISCVID criteria, echo strategy, antibiotic principles, surgical indications and prophylaxis in Australia.

Tier 1Condition

Written with AI assistance and fact-checked against the sources below. For exam study, not clinical decisions. How notes are made

At a glance

Think of endocarditis in fever plus a murmur, fever with a prosthetic valve or device, S. aureus bacteraemia, unexplained emboli or stroke, and fever in a person who injects drugs.
Take three sets of blood cultures before antibiotics. Culture-negative endocarditis is usually the result of skipping this.
Diagnosis uses the Duke-ISCVID (2023) criteria: microbiology plus imaging plus clinical features.

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2023 ESC Guidelines for the management of endocarditisEuropean Society of Cardiology, 2023
The 2023 Duke-International Society for Cardiovascular Infectious Diseases criteria for infective endocarditisClinical Infectious Diseases, 2023
Australian guideline for the prevention, diagnosis and management of acute rheumatic fever and rheumatic heart disease (Edition 3.4, October 2026; Tables 11.6 and 11.7 adapted from Therapeutic Guidelines 2019)AU/NZRHDAustralia (Menzies School of Health Research), Edition 3.4, October 2026
Therapeutic Guidelines: Antibiotic. Infective endocarditis (empirical therapy) and Prevention of infective endocarditisAU/NZTherapeutic Guidelines Limited (eTG complete), current eTG edition (version not verified)
IDSA/ESCMID 2026 consensus statements on Staphylococcus aureus bacteremia (Part 1)Infectious Diseases Society of America and European Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, 2026 (published 9 September 2026)

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