Association between the timing of surgery for complicated, left-sided infective endocarditis and survival

Background In patients with active infective endocarditis (IE), the relationship between timing of surgery and survival is uncertain. The objective was to evaluate clinical characteristics associated with timing of surgery and the association between surgical timing and 6-month survival in complicated, left-sided IE. Methods In a prospective, multicenter, observational registry (The International Collaboration on Endocarditis-PLUS, registry from 2008 to 2012), clinical factors associated with timing of surgery during the index hospitalization were determined among 485 adult patients with definite, complicated, left-sided IE who underwent cardiac surgery during their index hospitalization. The relationship between early surgical intervention ( Results The median time to surgery from admission to surgical center was 7 (interquartile range 2-15) days. Patients who underwent earlier surgery were more likely transferred to the surgical center (74.2% vs 46.4%, P P  = .001). Variables independently associated with surgery C -index = 0.84), but predicted operative risk was not. Cox proportional hazards modeling with inverse probability of treatment weighting found that earlier surgery was associated with a trend toward higher 6-month mortality compared with later surgery (hazard ratio = 1.68, 95% CI 0.97-2.96; P  = .065), particularly surgery within 2 days of admission or transfer. Mortality was significantly associated with operative risk and complicated IE, including Staphylococcus aureus infection and presence of abscess. Conclusions Earlier surgery in IE is strongly associated with acute heart failure and surgical urgency. After adjustment for operative risk and IE complications, earlier surgery