Abstract
The goal of our study was to determine the prevalence of older patients with cardiac
valvular abnormalities warranting endocarditis prophylaxis. We performed a retrospective
analysis of 1,000 randomly selected echocardiograms (inpatients and outpatients) from
our tertiary care institution. We found that the prevalence of valvular abnormalities
increased significantly with age, and that 50% of patients ≥60 years of age warranted
endocarditis prophylaxis using current guidelines. With the aging population of the
United States and the negative consequences of widespread antibiotic prophylaxis,
further investigation is needed to identify patients who are truly at risk for infectious
endocarditis.
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Article Info
Publication History
Accepted:
April 1,
2004
Received in revised form:
April 1,
2004
Received:
November 13,
2003
Identification
Copyright
© 2004 Excerpta Medica Inc. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
