EDITORIAL Infective Endocarditis in Congenital Heart Disease Patients: It’s Time to Pay More Attention!

Infective endocarditis(IE) is the result of endovas-cular microbial infection. Due to the growing patient population suffering with pre- and postoperative con-genital heart disease(CHD), the increased placement of prosthetic valves, vascular grafts and patches in the heart and also the improvement of intensive cardiac care, IE that is related to CHD is showing continuously chan-ging features. In general, IE can be better classified by referring to the activity of the disease, the diagnostic status(definite/possible), the anatomic site(right/left side), the underlying disease(native valve/prosthetic valve/other foreign material), the microbiology of the disease(the causative microorganism and the culture/ serology/PCR/histology) and the patient population (CHD, nosocomial IE, drug users, hemodialysis, etc.).1