Wang A, et al. - Researchers evaluated clinical features related to timing of surgery among 485 adult patients with definite, complicated, left-sided infective endocarditis (IE) who underwent cardiac surgery during their index hospitalization. Further, they also assessed how early surgical intervention (< 7 days from admission to surgery center) effects outcome following surgery. They identified a strong correlation of earlier surgery in IE with acute heart failure and surgical urgency. A tendency toward higher 6-month overall mortality was observed with earlier surgery <7 days from admission vs surgery later in the index hospitalization, after adjustment for operative risk and IE complications. Patients who underwent earlier surgery had a lower percentage of pre-existing heart failure (before IE diagnosis) (6.0% vs 17.3%), but a higher rate of acute heart failure (53.2% vs 38.4%).