Monitoring
Patients should be monitored for persistent infection, defined as persistent fever and positive blood cultures after 7 days of appropriate antibiotics.[7] Blood cultures should be repeated after 48-72 hours after commencing appropriate antibiotics; persistent positive blood cultures are associated with an increased risk of in-hospital mortality.[7] Before completing antimicrobial therapy, patients should receive transthoracic echocardiogram to establish a new baseline. In addition, it is generally recommended that patients with prosthetic valve endocarditis undergo transesophageal echocardiogram at the completion of therapy. All patients should have blood cultures done at 1 and 2 weeks following therapy to ensure they are not persistently bacteremic.[6]
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