European Research Group on Outcomes of Surgical Treatment of Infective Endocarditis

ERGOSTE, Purposes:

* To create a European multicenter retrospective database including a large number of patients undergoing surgical treatment for infective endocarditis (IE). * To perform epidemiologic analyses of IE-patients and involved pathogens. * To find independent predictors of early post-operative death. * To test ALL the scoring systems specifically developed to predict early death after surgery for infective endocarditis. * To devise a specific risk score for early postoperative death. * To explore early and late outcomes of these very difficult patients in order to establish optimal indications, techniques and timing of surgery. * To carry out a number of sub-analyses concerning the demographic parameters and variable clinical presentation of patients, type and severity of cardiac structural involvement, adopted valve prostheses and surgical techniques, and different involved microbiologic agents. * To lay experiential foundations of a prospective database on the topic.