Surgical treatment for active infective endocarditis: progress and challenges

Infective endocarditis (IE) is a challenging disease. In the past century, it has the highest mortality among all kinds of valvular heart diseases. Treatment for IE has developed over time from anti-infective therapy only to today’s active surgery. However, due to its characteristics of multisystem involvement and changeable clinical symptoms, early diagnosis, indication and timing of surgery, and evaluation of surgical risk remain urgent issues at present. By reviewing representative literature in the past 20 years and combining them with our experience of surgical treatment for IE, we summarize the latest progress and challenges faced by active surgery for IE, and emphasize the importance of establishing IE multidisciplinary team in clinical practice.