Emergency valve replacement in bacterial endocarditis.

The object of this report is to record our experience with six patients in whom urgent surgical measures becaniz necessary as a result of cardiac valve destruction following bacterial endocarditis. The patients constitute a group of six in a total of 200 valve replacements and have been distinguished from three patients in whom, as a result of bacterial endocarditis, valve replacement was undertaken as a routine measure, and 11 patients in a series of 115 mitral valve replacements in whom bacterial endocarditis occurred before surgery. On one occasion the aortic and mitral valves were involved, on three the aortic valve was involved, and on two the mitral valve was involved.