Endocarditis

Abstract

Echocardiography plays a key role in the assessment of infective endocarditis (IE). It is useful both for the diagnosis of endocarditis, the assessment of the severity of the disease, the prediction of short-term and long-term prognosis, the prediction of embolic risk, the management of the complications of endocarditis, and the follow-up of patients under specific antibiotic therapy. The Task Force on the Prevention, Diagnosis, and Treatment of Infective Endocarditis of the European Society of Cardiology and the ‘Recommendations for the practice of echocardiography in infective endocarditis’ of the European Association for Echocardiography have underlined the value and limitations of echocardiography in IE, and gave clear recommendations for the optimal use of both transthoracic and transoesophageal echocardiography in IE. New data in the field of echocardiography in IE includes more extensive use of three-dimensional transoesophageal echocardiography, inclusion of other imaging techniques, and new important publications in the field of the prediction of embolic risk by echocardiography.