Objectives: The diagnosis of infective endocarditis (IE) is clinically challenging. This study aimed to examine an endocarditis network and the effects of delayed diagnosis. Methods: We reviewed the patients who were admitted for infective endocarditis at our institution between January 2012 and December 2021. Infective endocarditis was diagnosed according to ESC/EACTS guidelines for the management of endocarditis. Details of admitting hospitals were obtained from the German Hospital Directory. Data are presented as medians (25th-75th quartiles) or absolute values (percentages) unless otherwise specified. Results: A total of 812 consecutive patients were admitted to our centre for IE. Exact records on the time to diagnosis were available for 707 patients (87.1%). The patients were divided into two groups based on the time to diagnosis, i.e., up to 7 days (n = 509; 72.0% group ED) and more than 7 days (n = 198; 28.0% group LD). The EuroSCORE II (p = 0.001) and the EndoSCORE (p = 0.019) were significantly higher in the LD group. The median time to diagnosis was shorter in university hospitals as compared to non-teaching hospitals (p = 0.008) and among patients admitted to cardiology and cardiac surgery departments (p < 0.001). Patients diagnosed later had higher rates of tracheostomy (p < 0.001), longer ICU (p = 0.004) and hospital stays (p < 0.001) and higher in-hospital mortality (p = 0.027). We found that a delayed diagnosis (p = 0.040), stroke (p = 0.004), age > 75 years (p = 0.044) and atrial fibrillation (p < 0.001) were independently associated with in-hospital mortality. Furthermore, survival at 1 and 5 years was significantly higher in the ED group (p < 0.001). Conclusions: The diagnosis of IE may be influenced by a multitude of factors. Our results indicate that a delayed diagnosis is independently associated with an increased rate of in-hospital mortality. According to our results, an early diagnosis of IE may be associated with improved outcomes.
Keywords: diagnosis; infective endocarditis.