Predictive strength of inflammatory scores for in-hospital mortality in infective endocarditis.

Background: Inflammatory markers have been proposed as prognostic tools for predicting in-hospital mortality in infective endocarditis (IE). Nonetheless, it is unclear whether these markers provide additional prognostic value over established indicators. This study compared nine different inflammation scores to assess their effectiveness in enhancing the prediction of in-hospital mortality.

Methods: Patients with IE diagnosed between 2017 and 2023 at two cardiology centers in Istanbul were included in this study. Pre-treatment inflammatory markers were obtained from the hospital electronic database system. In-hospital mortality prognostication was assessed using Cox proportional hazards models.

Results: A total of 122 patients who were diagnosed with IE were included in the analysis. Overall, 38 patients died during the hospital stay. The patients were categorized into two groups based on their mortality status. The prognostic nutritional index (PNI), platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio (PLR), and modified Glasgow prognostic score (mGPS) were identified as statistically significant predictors of in-hospital mortality. Based on the results of Cox regression analysis, the PNI (hazard ratio [HR]: 0.921, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.853-0.994, p = 0.035) emerged as the only independent predictor of in-hospital mortality of IE patients.

Conclusion: Nine inflammatory scores were evaluated in this study. The PNI, PLR, and mGPS were statistically significant predictors of in-hospital mortality in patients with IE. The PNI was identified as the optimal score.