Infective Endocarditis - Is Endothelial Damage the First Step?

There are three steps required for infective endocarditis to form. The first step, valvular injury, sort of fits with what we talked about during episode 65 when we talked about rheumatic heart disease. In 1963, Simon Robert published a set of experiments using venturi tubes to model flow across valves. He showed that high pressure drives an infected fluid to a low pressure sink. And that this creates the characteristic pattern of bacterial colony distribution in endocarditis.