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Infective endocarditis across borders

ESC Congress 2026 | Prof David Messika-Zeitoun (University of Ottawa, Canada) describes his specialty field of infective endocarditis as an “evolving landscape”. In the interview he speaks about the current diagnostic approaches and the key principles of treatment as well as about implementing multidisciplinary endocarditis teams.

By:

Romy Martínez

HERZMEDIZIN editorial team

 

 

2026-08-31

Image source (image above): Sergii Figurnyi / Shutterstock.com

Take-aways

  • The epidemiology of infective endocarditis is evolving, with increasing cases associated with healthcare exposure, implanted devices, and people who inject drugs, who also face a higher risk of recurrence.
  • Early diagnosis remains challenging, making a low threshold for echocardiography essential. PET-CT and CT add complementary information, particularly in patients with prosthetic valves or devices, but do not replace echocardiography.
  • Treatment starts with antibiotics and requires multidisciplinary expertise. Surgery is mainly driven by anatomical damage, heart failure, or embolic risk, while emerging approaches such as AngioVac may help control infection and sometimes avoid surgery.
  • A multidisciplinary “heart team” is crucial, as infective endocarditis can involve cardiac, infectious, neurological, and other complications; for people who inject drugs, addiction services also need to be part of treatment and follow-up.

More on this topic

To the overview page ESC Congress 2026

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