SUMMARY

Drug abuse is a major problem in Malaysia. Serious complications of intravenous drug addiction include septicaemia and infective endocarditis. We present nine cases of endocardi-tis occuring amongst drug abusers. The tricuspid valve was most frequently invloved and the common aetiological organisms were S. aureus and Str. faeca/is. There was a high mortality rate of 67 % in our study, inspite of appropriate therapy. Early recognition of the disease and aggressive treatment is required to improve the associated mortality