[Employment of St. Jude "silzone" valve in the surgical treatment of early prosthetic valve endocarditis: a preliminary case report and review of the literature].

Prosthetic valve endocarditis remains as one of the most life-threatening complication of valve replacement surgery. Homografts are the valve of choice with a lower early risk of endocarditis than other valve substitutes, however they are not always available. Recently a new prosthesis has been introduced with a silver-coated sewing cuff (St. Jude Medical with Silzone coating). Silver is an antimicrobial agent that has been proven to reduce bacterial colonization. We present the case of a 48-year-old man with an early prosthetic valve endocarditis which affected an aortic stentless prosthesis. He was successfully treated with a silver-coated prosthesis. Indications for surgery and the use of this prosthesis as a valuable option in this disease entity are discussed. Although the present patient is an isolated case, the interest of this article is the encouraging result obtained with this new prosthesis for this serious complication. Moreover, the clinical experience is reduced with only a few reports in the literature.