Community-acquired febrile illness in patients with prosthetic heart valves.

We prospectively studied 40 patients with prosthetic heart valves and community-acquired febrile illness. The mean age of the group studied was 35.2 +/- 12.8 years, and the mean length of time that the prosthetic valve had been in place was 53.4 +/- 43.7 months. There was a high incidence (37.5%) of infectious endocarditis in the patients studied, with a total mortality of 15% in the group. The presence of a new regurgitant murmur, skin or retinal lesions, splenomegaly, vegetations shown on echocardiograms, and persistent bacteremia was associated with infectious endocarditis (P less than .05). The patients with mechanical Starr-Edwards valves had a significantly higher incidence (P less than .001) of infectious endocarditis than those with other types of prosthetic valves implanted in our hospital. Complete evaluation is mandatory in febrile patients with prosthetic heart valves because of the high risk of prosthetic valve endocarditis as the cause of the fever.