Clinical Profile and Etiological Agents Involved in Pediatric Infective Endocarditis

Objective: To find out clinical profile and etiological agents involved in Pediatric infective endocarditis. Study Design: A descriptive observational study. Place and Duration of the Study: The Department of Pediatrics, Sughra Shafi Medical Complex, Sahara Medical College, Narowal, Pakistan from April 2017 to March 2021. Material and Methods: A total of 195 children of both genders aged below 14 years and having endocarditis were enrolled. Endocarditis was labeled as per modified Duke’s criteria. Data was entered and analyzed using SPSS version 26.0. Quantitative data like age was represented as mead and standard deviation. Qualitative data like gender, area of residence, clinical presentation, types of isolated microorganisms and underlying disease were shown as frequencies and percentages. Results: Out of a total of 195 children, 124 (63.6%) were male. Overall, mean age was noted to be 5.48+2.1 years. Fever was the commonest type of clinical presentation noted among 148 (75.9%) children followed by shortness of breath 101 (51.8%) and chest pain/discomfort 48 (24.6%). Congenital heart defects were the commonest form of underlying disease observed in 95 (48.7%) children. Blood culture findings revealed 112 (57.4%) samples to produce no growth while coagulase negative staphylococcus was the commonest etiological agent noted in 37 (19.0%) children. Conclusion: Majority of the children with infective endocarditis were male. Most common types of clinical presentation were fever and shortness of breath. Congenital heart defects formed major chunk of underlying disease. Coagulase negative staphylococcus was found to be the most common etiological agent. Keywords: Infective endocarditis, fever, shortness of breath, congenital heart defects.