HACEK infective endocarditis: epidemiology, clinical features outcome: A case-control study

Abstract

OBJECTIVES: The study aimed to describe the epidemiology, microbiological and clinical features of a population sample of 17 patients with HACEK-IE and to compare them with matched control patients with IE caused by Viridans group Streptococci (VGS-IE). METHODS: Description of definite (14; 82.2%) and possible (3; 17.6%) HACEK-IE included in the 'Infective Endocarditis Hospital Clínic of Barcelona' (IE-HCB) database between 1979 and 2016. Furthermore, a retrospective case-control analysis was performed, matching each case to three VGS-IE controls registered in the same database during the same period of time. RESULTS: Seventeen out of 1,209 IE cases (1.3%, 95%CI 0.69-1.91) were due to HACEK group. The most frequent isolated HACEK species were Aggregatibacter spp (11; 64.7%). Intracardiac vegetations were present in 70.6% of cases. Left heart failure (LHF) was present in 29.4% of cases. Ten patients (58.8%) required in-hospital surgery and none died during hospitalization. In the case-control analysis, there was a trend toward larger vegetations in the HACEK-IE group (median (IRQ) size=11.5 (10.0-20.0) mm vs 9.0 (7.0-13.0) mm; p=0.068). Clinical manifestations, echocardiographic findings, LHF rate, systemic emboli and other complications were all comparable (p >0.05). In-hospital surgery and mortality were similar for both groups. One-year mortality was lower for HACEK-IE (1/17 vs. to 6/48, p=0.006). CONCLUSIONS: HACEK-IE represented 1.3% of all IE cases. Clinical features and outcome were comparable with the VGS-IE control group. Despite the trend tow