Blood Culture-Negative Endocarditis

Blood culture–negative endocarditis (BCNE) is an important clinical problem, since the identification of the pathogen and its sensitivity to anti-infective drugs is crucial to ensure optimal treatment of this disease. The most common causes of BCNE are the administration of antibiotics before blood culture for examination or infection with microorganisms that require special techniques and special equipment to identify them. Recognizing the extreme urgency of this problem, the American Heart Association issued a special statement, with a number of key achievements in the field of molecular diagnostics introduced into practice in recent years, as well as a variety of imaging techniques that help identify cardiac and extracardiac lesions as the leading source of motivation. This article comments on the main provisions of this document.