Infective endocarditis (IE) is a relatively rare disease and has a high in-hospital mortality (15-30%) and morbidity due to complications like embolic events, especially in the central nervous system, and heart failure. International guidelines give indications on the optimal timing for surgery, and they strongly recommend early surgery for patients in the active phase of IE with acute cardiac complications (e.g., acute heart failure, uncontrolled infection, and persistent large vegetations after an embolic event). However, at present there is no clear evidence supporting the effectiveness of early surgery or indicating the best time to perform surgery, especially in patients without such conditions. Primary objective of the study is to evaluate whether, in patients with IE and no emergency surgery indication, an early surgical strategy (performed within 72 hours from IE diagnosis) is more effective than conventional therapy in terms of 1-year stroke-free survival. Secondary objectives are: overall survival, risk of embolic, risk of strokes, event-free survival, IE relapse, heart failure, length of hospital stay, hospital re-admission and hospitalization days, strategy compliance, quality of life and health care costs.~This study design consist of a two-arm, open-label, multicenter randomized controlled trial, but patients who decline to be randomized and prefer a certain therapy strategy will be treated according to best practice and included into a prospective observational study after given informed consent. This parallel constructed observational study will be performed with a maximum of consistency to treatment and observation compared to the Randomized clinical trial (RCT). Patients who agree to the randomized trial will be stratified according to centre and clinical features (prosthetic valve,vegetations, valve regurgitation) and randomized with a 1: 1 ratio to 2 different strategies.~According to O'Brien and Fleming group sequential design with a maximum of two stages and a drop-out rate of 10%, a total of 400 randomized patients (200 per group) are required to detect an increase in the stroke-free survival from 82% to 89.5% (corresponding to an Hazard Ratio=0.56) considering a significance level of 5% and a power of 80% and expecting a risk for mortality or stroke at one year with standard treatment equal to 0.18.~EARLY study may help to demonstrate early surgery impact on the contemporary management of the disease.
The purpose of the EARLY study is to evaluate the efficacy and effectiveness of early surgery in patients with Infective Endocarditis (IE).