Advanced Echocardiography for the Diagnosis and Management of Infective Endocarditis

Echocardiography is fundamental for the management of infective endocarditis (IE) across all stages of the illness including diagnosis, surveillance during medical therapy, identification of prognostic markers, planning perioperative intervention, postoperative assessment, and follow-up after completion of definitive therapy. Modern era echocardiography (echo) offers outstanding temporal and spatial image resolution, providing the opportunity for early diagnosis of this life-threatening infection. Emerging imaging modalities, such as real-time three-dimensional (3D) echocardiography, offer a novel way of readily visualizing the extent of intracardiac infection and the relationship of pathology to adjacent cardiac structures, well before surgical intervention, without radiation exposure or significant risk to the patient. Echocardiography can have a positive impact on the management of every stage of this disease, with the opportunity to improve outcomes