What is endocarditis?

What is endocarditis?

Infective endocarditis (IE) is a potentially fatal inflammation of your heart valves’ lining and sometimes heart chambers’ lining. This occurs when germs (usually bacteria) from elsewhere in your body enter your bloodstream and attach to and attack the lining of your heart valves and/or chambers. Infective endocarditis is also called bacterial endocarditis (BE) or acute, subacute (SBE) or chronic bacterial endocarditis.