Correspondence Mortality and Neurological Complications After Early or Late Surgery for Infective

Barsic and colleagues for their important and timelyarticle comparing early (≤7days) and late surgery (>7 days) for infective endocarditis patients with new ischemic stroke [1].On the one hand, recent studies primarily found early surgery to have bet-ter outcomes than late surgery or medical therapy when indicated in infective endo-carditis [2–4].However, in the presence of cerebral embolism, which occurs in 20%– 40 % of infective endocarditis, few studies have addressed the optimal timing of sur-gery. Current guidelines are vague, sug-gesting that surgery should not be “delayed” in the presence of classic indications of hear