García-Villarreal, Ovidio A

ABSTRACT

There is something that needs to be said from the outset, without rhetorical embellishment: if an institutional series of prosthetic valve endocarditis doesn’t raise concerns, it’s probably being misinterpreted. Because this condition doesn’t lend itself to complacent interpretations. It is, in essence, a challenge for medicine, as it implies a failure in the treatment, the device, and, sometimes, the healthcare system as a whole.
The work presented by Cueva-Tutillo et al. in this issue of Cirugía Cardiaca en México has a virtue that is not always recognized. It does not attempt to soften or minimize the problem, but rather presents it as it is: a serious and lethal condition. An incidence of 2.9% in a contemporary surgical cohort, with a predominance of mechanical prostheses, a virtually equal distribution between early and late endocarditis, and—above all—a mortality rate of 36.8%, remind us that we continue to operate in the realm of high lethality, not of a treatable complication.

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