Twenty-Year Secular Trends in Infective Endocarditis in a Teaching Hospital

Background. The purpose of this study was to analyze the secular trends of infective endocarditis in a teaching hospital between January 1996 and December 2015. Methods. We report on a single-center retrospective study of patients with left-side valve infective endocarditis. We performed an analysis of secular trends in the main epidemiological and etiological aspects, as well as clinical outcomes, in 5 successive 4-year periods (P1 to P5). Results. In total, 595 episodes of infective endocarditis were included, of which 76% were community-acquired and 31.3% involved prosthetic valves. Among the cases, 70% occurred in men, and the mean age (SD) was 64.1 (14.3) years. A significant increase in older patients (age >= 70 years) between P1 (15.332%) and P5 (51.9%; P