Martinez, Juan A Quintero

Introduction: The association of echocardiographic measurements and subsequent risk of left-sided native valve endocarditis (LS-NVE) is undefined. Aim: To determine if transthoracic echocardiographic (TTE) measurements are associated with the subsequent development of LS-NVE in patients without recognized cardiac predisposing conditions. Methods: Institutional databases were evaluated for adults diagnosed with LS-NVE from 2008 to 2020. Patients with prosthetic valves, cardiovascular implantable electronic devices, intracardiac devices, injection drug use, and recognized predisposing cardiac conditions were excluded. Patients with a TTE performed 6 months to 3 years before developing LS-NVE were included as cases. Controls were patients within the same Mayo Clinic location with a TTE report and were matched in a 1:3 ratio according to age, gender, Charlson Comorbidity Index (CCI), and echocardiography date. Multivariate logistic-regression analyses adjusting significant variables between cohort's were performed. A p-value <0.05 was considered significant. Results: There were 148 cases and 431 matched controls. The median age was 63.8 (IQR: 53.6 - 74.6) years, and 329 (56.8%) patients were males. LS-NVE cases had a higher prevalence of diabetes mellitus (46.6% vs. 30.4%) and chronic kidney disease (46.6% vs. 28.1%) when compared with controls (p<0.001 both). The median CCI score was 3 (IQR: 0-6) for cases and 2 (IQR: 0-6) for controls. After performing adjusted analyses, left ventricular outflow tract velocity (p=0.017), left ventricular ejection fraction (p=0.018), and E: e’ ratio (p=0.050) were associated with the development of LS-NVE ( Figure 1) . Conclusions: Echocardiographic measurements were associated with subsequent LS-NVE development in this preliminary investigation. A larger cohort of LS-NVE patients is needed to validate these findings.

Introduction: Transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) is a well-recognized treatment for severe aortic stenosis. One potentially life-threatening complication of TAVR is infective endocarditis (IE). There is limited contemporary data on the clinical characteristics and outcomes of patients undergoing TAVR who develop in-hospital IE. Aim: Describe the clinical characteristics and outcomes of patients undergoing TAVR who develop in-hospital IE. Methods: The National Inpatient Sample Database was queried from 2016 to 2020 for relevant ICD-10 procedural and diagnostic codes. Baseline characteristics and in-hospital outcomes of adult (≥18 years) patients undergoing TAVR who developed in-hospital IE were compared to that of patients who did not develop IE. Multivariate logistic-regression analyses adjusting for age, race, gender, and statistically significant comorbidities between cohort's were performed. A p-value <0.05 was considered significant. Results: A total of 314,250 hospitalizations for patients undergoing TAVR were identified. Of them, 1065 (0.3%) developed in-hospital IE. Overall, mean age of IE patients was 70.3 ± 15.0. Patients were predominantly (62%) males and white (79.5%) ( Table 1) . IE patients had a higher risk of in-hospital all-cause mortality (adjusted odds ratio [95% CI]: 2.07 [1.50-2.86]), septic shock (3.73 [2.71-5.13]), acute respiratory failure (2.59 [2.19-3.06]), ischemic stroke (4.4 [3.48-5.51]), acute kidney injury (3.05 [2.61-3.57]), cardiac arrest (2.82 [1.83-4.37] and cardiogenic shock 3.70 [2.98-4.57]). All p values were <0.01. Conclusion: Patients undergoing TAVR who develop in-hospital IE had higher in-hospital complications when compared to those of patients who did not develop IE. Although the rate of in-hospital IE was low, the number of patients identified in the NIS database was sizable and the syndrome deserves investigation due to its associated complications.