title: A 28-year trend of infective endocarditis associated with congenital heart diseases: a single institute experience.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Infective endocarditis (IE) is still one of the major complications of congenital heart disease and, therefore, prevention has always been an important issue. But there has been no large scale investigation of IE in Japan.
  
  
  METHODS
  Clinical and microbiological features in 183 patients with congenital heart diseases complicated with infective endocarditis (IE), which were treated in our institute in the last 28 years, were reviewed.
  
  
  RESULTS
  During the period, the age distribution of the patients shifted to an older age; 80% were older than 15 years in the latest 7 year period. In the underlying diseases more complex conditions increased, such as the post Rastelli operation. Dental or oral diseases were the major preceding events and Streptococcus was the major pathogen throughout the study periods in the data.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The result indicates the importance of continuing education for the prevention of IE and oral hygiene especially in adult patients with a risk for IE.
authors.affiliation: Division of Pediatric Cardiology, The Heart Institute of Japan, Tokyo Women's Medical University, Tokyo, Japan. takesho@sis.seirei.or.jp
authors.forename: Sho
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Takeda
authors.forename: Toshio
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Nakanishi
authors.forename: Makoto
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Nakazawa
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D017677:Age Distribution; D002648:Child; D004697:Endocarditis, Bacterial / Q000209:etiology* / Q000382:microbiology / Q000517:prevention & control; D006330:Heart Defects, Congenital / Q000150:complications*; D006801:Humans; D009910:Oral Hygiene; D012189:Retrospective Studies