The EASE trial: surgery for infective endocarditis, have we found the right timing?

Despite recent advances in diagnosis and treatment, infective endocarditis (IE) is still a hazardous condition with high in-hospital mortality, reaching 12.6% (1) in the Euro Heart Survey programme. Surgical treatment is a potentially lifesaving treatment and is required in nearly 50% of patients (2). Indications for surgery are well defined in guidelines (3,4) but there is a lack of recommendations about the time when it must be done and, in general terms, prognosis is better if surgery is undertaken in the acute or active phase of IE, before cardiac tissue destruction takes place.