The impact of preoperative neurological events in patients suffering from native infective valve endocarditis

OBJECTIVES: Infective native valve endocarditis (NVE) complicated by a preoperative neurological event still remains a surgical challenge. Particularly, great uncertainty exists with regard to the optimal timing of surgery. We call for a multidisciplinary team approach for individualized risk estimation and analysed our experience obtained over the past decade. METHODS: Between 1997 and 2012, a total of 495 patients underwent valve surgery for the treatment of NVE. Of these, 70 (14.1%) patients suffered from NVE complicated by an acute neurological event and formed the study group. The remaining 425 (85.9%) patients served as the control group. The mean age of the predominantly male (80.0%) study population was 54 +/- 14 years. EuroSCORE and EuroSCORE II predicted a high surgical risk (24.9 +/- 6.8 and 10.8 +/- 8.1%, respectively). The mean follow-up time was 4.0 +/- 3.1 years, ranging up to 15.6 years with an interquartile range from 1.7 to 5.4 years. An interdisciplinary team consisting of a cardiac surgeon, a cardiologist and a neurologist made the decision for surgery. RESULTS: Observed neurological deficits mainly consisted of ischaemic stroke (75.7%), meningoencephalitis (12.9%) and intracerebral haemorrhage (8.6%). The mean time interval between the neurological event and surgery was 8.7 +/- 10.3 days for all patients, 8.0 +/- 7.0 days for ischaemic stroke and 17 +/- 24 days for intracerebral haemorrhage. Postoperatively, most of the patients experienced no change (22.9%) or even improvement (67.1%) of their neurological symptoms. Only 10.0% showed further deterioration of their neurological status. This was particularly true for patients suffering from intracerebral haemorrhage, with 33.3% experiencing further neurological impairment. The presence of a preoperative neurological event was identified as an independent risk factor for in-hospital mortality (OR 2.66; 95% CI: 1.02-6.78; P = 0.046) but not for mortality during further follow-up (P = 0.257). The hospital mortality rate was 17.2%; and the 1-, 5- and 10-year survival rates were 74.3, 68 +/- 5.0 and 67.1 +/- 9.0%, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: NVE complicated by neurological events remains a challenging disease with high mortality and morbidity. Cardiac surgery seemed to be safe in the observed time interval, particularly for patients suffering from ischaemic stroke. A multidisciplinary approach is advocated for very individualized risk estimation.