Infectious heart disease death rates rising again say scientists

Infectious heart disease is still a major killer in spite of improvements in health care, but the way the disease develops has changed so much since its discovery that nineteenth century doctors would not recognise it, scientists heard today (Thursday 11 September 2008) at the Society for General Microbiology’s Autumn meeting being held this week at Trinity College, Dublin.

Infective endocarditis is a devastating, progressive and frequently fatal heart disease usually caused by bacterial pathogens. It was first identified in the nineteenth century and has changed beyond all recognition due to evolution of the disease itself and developments in modern healthcare such as open-heart surgery, antibiotics and new medical imaging techniques.

“In spite of these medical advances, infective endocarditis is still evolving and we are seeing new patterns of the disease and its complications. Despite all our improvements in health care, the death rate has been virtually unchanged for the last 20 years, and now seems to be rising again,” said cardiologist Dr Bernard Prendergast from the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, UK.