Abstract

Infective endocarditis is at least as common today as it was 50 years ago but now affects rather older patients. Despite modern antibiotic therapy 15 to 30% of patients still die. A working party of the British Society of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy (BSAC) has recently made recommendations¹ for the antibiotic treatment of streptococcal and staphylococcal endocarditis on which this article is based; advice from other specialists is also included.