Peer review discontinued Peer review at is F1000Research author-driven. Currently no referees are being invited. What does this mean? Discuss this article (0) Comments REVIEW Infective endocarditis today [version 1; referees: 1 not approved] Donato D'Agostino Department of Emergency and Organ Transplantation (DETO), Section of Cardiac Surgery , University of Bari “A. Moro” , Bari, 70124 , Italy Abstract Endocarditis is an infectious disease caused by numerous microorganisms, many of which habitually colonize the oral cavity and skin. Various bacteria and bacterial factors influence the duration of bacteremia and the possible colonization of cardiac valves. If not recognized and treated early, the disease may have serious consequences until death: despite the possibility of setting up targeted antibiotic therapy, it may occur in 30% of cases. This event is related to sepsis that develops in these patients and can result in cellular functional alterations in many districts, resulting in multi-organ failure (MOF) status. This paper is aimed to present an overview of this condition, based on the author’s own clinical experience and literature review. Keywords Infective Endocarditis, risk factors, prophylaxis, prophylactic therapy, bacteraemia, oral surgery, oral hygiene, Staphylococcus aureus. Donato D'Agostino ( ) Corresponding author: prof_d.dagostino@libero.it : Conceptualization, Data Curation, Investigation, Resources, Validation, Writing – Original Draft Preparation Author roles: D'Agostino D No competing interests were disclosed. Competing interests: The author(s) declared that no grants were involved in supporting this work. Grant information: © 2017 D'Agostino D. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the , which Copyright: Creative Commons Attribution Licence permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. D'Agostino D. 2017, :2188 ( How to cite this article: Infective endocarditis today [version 1; referees: 1 not approved] F1000Research 6 ) https://doi.org/10.12688/f1000research.13512.1 29 Dec 2017, :2188 ( ) First published: 6 https://doi.org/10.12688/f1000research.13512.1 Referee Status: Invited Referees version 1 published 29 Dec 2017 1 report , St Thomas’ Bernard Prendergast Hospital, UK , St Thomas’ Hospital, Daniel Harding UK 1 29 Dec 2017, :2188 ( First published: 6 ) https://doi.org/10.12688/f1000research.13512.1 29 Dec 2017, :2188 ( Latest published: 6 ) https://doi.org/10.12688/f1000research.13512.1 v1 Page 1 of 9 F1000Research 2017, 6:2188 Last updated: 01 NOV 2018