Clinical Microbiology and Antimicrobial Chemotherapy. 2014; 16(1):26-32
To reveal the level of knowledge of medical specialists on the diagnostics and treatment of infective endocarditis (IE).
Multicenter interviewing of the medical specialists about IE etiology, diagnostics and treatment was conducted during 2012–2013 in 15 cities of different regions of Russia.
Overall 530 medical specialists were interviewed. On the question concerning the choice of echocardiographic study only 59,4% of respondents have marked transesophageal route. Majority of answers on IE diagnostic criteria were correct (65,5% for major and 61,3% for minor criteria, respectively). Staphylococcus aureus was pointed out as a leading cause of IE by 40,7% of respondents, Streptococcus viridians — by 29,96%. On the question about the most common causative agent of IE in IV drug users S.aureus was marked as a correct answer only in 37,6% of cases. Only 26,2% of answers were correct concerning choice of antimicrobials for the treatment of MRSA endocarditis, 32,5% — IE caused by MSSA, 45,9%, 63,2%, 26,9% — IE caused by Enterococcus faecalis, Streptococcus viridians and Aggregatibacter actinomycetomcomitans respectively. The percentages of correct answers on the duration of antimicrobial therapy were from 40,6% to 66,1%, depending on the causative pathogen.
The study raised up a number of problems, concerning the level of knowledge of medical specialists on the diagnostics and treatment of infective endocarditis.