About this Research Topic
Endocarditis is a rare group of diseases characterized by the presence of inflammation of the endocardium and they usually involve the cardiac valves. In this setting, the most frequent form of endocarditis is infective endocarditis (IE), which is caused by an infection. A correct diagnosis is mandatory in order to start a specific therapy and therefore avoid important consequences since IE is associated with high morbidity and mortality.
Currently, the clinical diagnosis of IE is based on the modified Duke criteria. Such criteria have a good sensitivity of around 80% for the diagnosis of native valve endocarditis (NVE) while the sensitivity becomes lower when assessing the presence of prosthetic valve endocarditis (PVE) and culture-negative endocarditis. Transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) is a mandatory imaging tool to evaluate the presence of IE with a sensitivity of around 70% in NVE that drops to 50% in PVE.
Transoesophageal echocardiography (TOE) is a second-step imaging modality that has both sensitivity and specificity of around 90% for the evaluation of IE’s vegetations. Moreover, nuclear medicine techniques such as 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography/computed tomography (18F-FDG PET/CT) and labeled leukocytes scintigraphy have been used in the last years in IE with encouraging results that need to be clearly confirmed for both NVE and PVE.
The scope of this Topic is to evaluate the role of different imaging modalities for the assessment and diagnosis of IE. Moreover, their usefulness for the evaluation of response to therapy is a point of major interest to the Topic. Finally, the different accuracy of each imaging modality for the different evaluations of NVE and PVE is an essential aim of the Topic.
Currently, the clinical diagnosis of IE is based on the modified Duke criteria. Such criteria have a good sensitivity of around 80% for the diagnosis of native valve endocarditis (NVE) while the sensitivity becomes lower when assessing the presence of prosthetic valve endocarditis (PVE) and culture-negative endocarditis. Transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) is a mandatory imaging tool to evaluate the presence of IE with a sensitivity of around 70% in NVE that drops to 50% in PVE.
Transoesophageal echocardiography (TOE) is a second-step imaging modality that has both sensitivity and specificity of around 90% for the evaluation of IE’s vegetations. Moreover, nuclear medicine techniques such as 18F-fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography/computed tomography (18F-FDG PET/CT) and labeled leukocytes scintigraphy have been used in the last years in IE with encouraging results that need to be clearly confirmed for both NVE and PVE.
The scope of this Topic is to evaluate the role of different imaging modalities for the assessment and diagnosis of IE. Moreover, their usefulness for the evaluation of response to therapy is a point of major interest to the Topic. Finally, the different accuracy of each imaging modality for the different evaluations of NVE and PVE is an essential aim of the Topic.
Keywords: Endocarditis, CMR, cardiac MRI, CT, PET/CT, 18F-FDG, Positron Emission Tomography, Labelled Leukocytes, 99mTc-HMPAO, SPECT/CT, Echocardiography, Infective Endocarditis
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