Repeat infective endocarditis: differentiating relapse from reinfection

Abstract

Repeat infective endocarditis due to the same species can represent relapse of the initial infection or a new infection. We used time-based clinical criteria and pulsed-field gel electrophoresis-based molecular criteria to classify 13 cases of repeat infective endocarditis as either relapse or reinfection. The agreement between clinical and molecular criteria was imperfect (agreement in 10 [77%] of 13 cases).